RE: WHERE HAVE ALL THE OLDIES GONE /

There was a time this forum was chockers with descriptions and comparisons of many detectors - what was best, what was more versatile in the field, which coils did what with which but for some time now the forum appears devoid of such fascinating subjects.. Has the mighty Z silenced the lot making them hasbeens to be pensioned off to the cobwebby corner of the wardrobe.. Have detectorists found so much gold that they invested in the Z and keep mum about successes or maybe they bought a tinnie and now laze away the days casting in a fishless sea.. Any thoughts ?? Dundiggin.

Yes I agree that the old days of detector descriptions and comparisons have vanished.
Maybe we are just getting old and there is not much new blood coming on line.
I don't think detectors like the 7000 and other Minelab very expensive machines have caused this. It more likely to be because interest is fading and the introduction of many rules and regulations have changed this hobby into a bit of a drag.

I have been recently been trying to kindle some interest in the X-terra 705. This tecta has been around for a few years and is still in production. It is a nifty general purpose metal detector but I notice 5 on Aussie Ebay at this time, a bit overrepresented I thought and I am wondering what has caused people to want to pass up on this machine.

I also tried to trigger some interest in the vallon range of Pi and in particular the VMH3CS. A nice machine that performs very well at the beach and is no slouch in the gold fields. I think just one member showed some interest.


I and several others on this forum used to write Field tests for various tectas and coils and metal detecting in general but now most people staying in the hobby have been around for near on as long as I have and so already know their detectors and have learnt much through experience in the field and from other members of this and other forums. So now, I for one feel as though I have very little that I can add in the form of new information.

All that was needed to be said, has just about been said & even though there's a lot of good past info on here, current detector technology has all but reached its climax. People are simply tired of repeating themselves with the past. The GPZ 7000, is not the do all find all, but a small leap or advancement in detector technology over that of the GPX series & until something far more powerful/useful comes along in the near by future & gold being as scarce to find as it is, comparison reports between detector/coil combinations, will continue to remain stagnant. Little advantage if none at all will arise from the addition of more bells & whistles added to current metal detecting technology, for the gold found in all past localities, within detector reach, is all but gone & gone for good. Many today prefer to keep what little finds they have found to themselves & I certainly can't blame them, for the scarcer the gold becomes to find, the scarcer the write ups will be.
If one goes back 25 odd years, you'd see/read a gold gem & treasure magazine, full of gold finds. Today it consists mostly of advertising.
Yep, the good o'l days are all but gone alright.
Now on a brighter note, anyone heard of any upcoming new detecting technology on the horizon?

Cheers Kon.

If today is bad you can only hope tomorrow is great.

We're all part of the evolution cycle, looking for gold is no different ,it has it highs and lows and it will eventually fizzle out.
My old neighbor jack and his mate got into detecting in the 70's and boy the stories he told me would make any grown man weep.
Between them they pulled more than 450 ounces ,every weekend they would detect the tracks coming out of the hills,then heaps then the open cuts.
Weekends were spent bringing home massive quartz boulders and slowly cracking them open in the back yard,one bolder had several ounces in it.
I meet jack in his late 70's and he was still keen as mustard and fit as a fiddle,we went on numerous outings,jack would share his knowledge of the area and give some handy hints.
My youth and friendship gave him some renewed vigor,He took me to a spot one day which he said was well done over and he hadn't been there for years.
We wandered around for some time then eventually jack[in his 80's] came over to me with a grin like a Cheshire cat,he'd just pinged a 7 ounce slug,his biggest nugget ever.
It took him some time to loose that grin.Jack's gone now but his knowledge was passed on.I think the good old days are still here,just a little less yellow stuff around.

cheers moredeep

Hi, I think a lot of us are still around,maybe also on different forums these days.
I think things have quieted down because the 70's,80's and 90's lot more people were finding the larger nuggets,so were more excited to talk about their finds and equipment ect.
I remember in the 70.s ,I bought my 2nd detector ,after my 1st which was a micronta from radio shack.LOL. My 2nd detector was a real one ,a Coinmaster 6000d.
I used to go to Wedderburn on some Saturdays did not really know where to go,but ended up in Queens gully on heresay.
New nothing about the area, or geology, (not that I know much more now,) except how to operate the new 6000d.
I pinged a 1 grammer which I dented with my pick.

Sold my detector a while later as had no more time to go out.

Then the 90,s came  along bought my 1st second hand sd 2000 det went out in the same area and about 10 feet from my 1st find found a 32 grammer, I hid it in a spare sock until I got home.

Back then a lot of people were finding the larger nuggets also some of the books I had I think written by Bob Sargent or Doug Stone.

I think I still have one of the books ,with a lot younger picture of Doug Stone.

Those were the good old days ,also that's when Barrie Johnson had his Detector place in Wedderburn

I was talking to a dealer several times over the last few years and he said that there are less new people joining the hobby from younger crowds.  he sees a few families getting a coin/relic detector but gold detecting isn't attracting new recruits like it used to.  And he stated that they often showed the same behavior: They would tentatively get into prospecting but would panic when they left the reception areas of the cellphone towers. As a result of this, they lost interest when they went into the bush because the couldn't get reception on their smartphones.  He remains convinced that for the generations growing up with smartphones, they aren't showing interest in leaving their favorite toys behind to take up prospecting.

I'd also agree that less major sized nuggets are showing up in the media... since people are avoiding the attention they bring.  They don't want to have some online sleuth track them down and rob their homes.  People are more coy now.  One member from this forum told me he was so sick of being harassed to find out where he was getting his larger finds and then being ridiculed for his methods and even outright disbelieved when the volume of gold he found was discussed/shown... that he chose to withdraw from this forum altogether.  He has since moved from NSW to Queensland and continues to detect full time in remote areas.  He told me some of the messages people sent him (here) were so off-putting and negative that he no longer wanted to be associated with the internet forums.  He was convinced that most of the offensive remarks appeared to be coming from people who had never used a metal detector before.

We haven't seen too many exciting finds lately online... but when I travel out to the local goldfields there's always talk about who found what and where.  I know that one chap who is known to many of the forum members here has been digging in places that are no-go areas.  I'm not going to name him or his location or the nature of why he ought not be digging where he is (this wasn't private property)... but a gold panner I met last year pointed out where this chap had used some creativity to locate some larger (over 0.6 ozt nuggets) from a difficult to reach spot recently.... which he was forced to risk his neck to get to since all the lower ground areas there had been thrashed.  He had climbed up the walls of a near-vertical canyon to get to spots no detector had previously scanned.

I know some great areas I'd like to return to with the better equipment I own... but the deluge of rain is going to mess things up out there for me this week. I don't even know if it's worth heading towards the rivers to do some crevicing now due to the rain.  I'm likely to try my hand with a small coil on my old GPX to see if I can locate some smaller bits on the benches over the weekend.  We are all fortunate to live in a beautiful country here.  But with the new Gold and Opal hunting videos on television, it's easier to sit back and watch those than brave the bugs and snakes and hard digging out there in the goldfields.  But if you don't dig for gold, you don't get gold.  Perhaps the pause in activity is good because it means that when newer and more capable technology is developed, people can rush out to those spots to see what was missed before.

I'd definitely agree that the tighter laws and unnecessary regulations have killed off a lot of interest in recent years.  Dealers can't sell half the equipment they could sell years ago because nobody can use many of those tools any more.  Highbankers and trommels and drywashers have slowly become victims of legislation and signed into law by fools who don't even understand the differences between them.  In the end we have gold pans and detectors and shovels... and even that is becoming controlled more tightly. As more ground becomes inaccessible, the ground that is left is picked over and occasionally something interesting pops up.  i'm still looking for gold.  I don't find it every time I go out but I'm still keen to look.  The last trip out we found a nice deposit of smaller nuggets jammed deep under a ledge of stone under water and I didn't have a decent suction tool to recover it all.  But the nuggets were lovely and flat... as if someone had hit them with a hammer.  I've an agreement with several friends and we occasionally travel out to some of the remote locations within a day's drive or two to look for gold in any form.  Sometimes it's just nice to get out of town.  I'll try to post some pictures here over the next week if I get to head out again.  But this weather is awful.  I'm worried my detector will struggle in the water-soaked clays.  I haven't used a small coil in a while.... I remember that a large coil was hellish to use over wet ground... I can't even remember what a small one will do (NFA 6x8") in sloppy clay-soil.  Heck, I can't even remember if the coil is waterproof (it's been that long since I used it last).  Jeepers it's been a while.

Shame that things like the above have happened to members in the past Nero & although I have no control over members write ups or private messaging to another,(till its brought to my attention), can assure all here, the moment some form of inappropriate behaviour through posts or pms, is brought to managements attention, we will be taking all/any necessary steps/appropriate action, as required/set down by the rules governing this forum.  There are saboteurs laying dormant within every field/occupation, from the highest of authority to the lowest, but no one here should feel that they're being targeted, threatened or intimidated by another without just cause (less of course having put down an inappropriate, provocative rite up themselves). I cannot change the past nor do I have the authority to stop what is going to be posted until its posted up, but will intervene the moment a problematic post or pm is presented to my attention. Keep in mind members, the forum has a "Friends or Foes" list, within every members profile. By selecting "Foes" in that profile, pms can no longer be sent by the member sending the abusive message/s.
I know many prefer not to be seen as a stooley by dobbing someone else in, but no one has the right to pm abuse to another without just cause & even if one does believe they have been given that right to do so, let us management handle it. That's what we're here for.

Cheers Management.

Don't worry about it Kon. It's water under the bridge by now. I don't even know who it was. And I haven't seen any volatile posts since then (around 2 or 3 years ago now). The chap I know probably isn't used to having his integrity challenged so it hurt him all the more when it happened. He seemed genuinely bewildered at the time. The internet is like that with anonymity. I can still remember how some of the members here would try to stir up an argument with me here and then contact my employer at the time and demand that they fire me. When asked for their name they refused to give it and would hang up. It became a bit of a game. I'm certain that people who act like that are not gentlemen and presumably a self respecting prospector wouldn't have a need to exhibit such behavior. I was guilty of stirring some of them up and I didn't mind challenging people. But those exchanges that took place, as bad as they sometimes were, certainly kept things interesting. I'd say the second-worst thing happened on another forum where someone created a false account under my name and another one under the name of the guy I was working with and then started fights there. It led to some interesting conversations when I got to work the next morning and I ended up having to enter that forum and denounce it with my one and only post there. But the worst things that happened to me came from a member here who hasn't posted in a while and it was so vile that I won't describe it here. Again, it made for some interesting times.

Despite the weather, I'm very keen to get out and try looking for gold over the next few days. I think that anything to do with gold makes for interesting reading here... even if it's about Ancient gold coins found in a European hoard or a pirate wreck and its contents. But I'm surprised that the forum has died down a bit lately. Then again, I haven't been out myself at all this year. My detecting buddy was serving in Iraq up until recently so that influenced some of my decisions lately. I've only seen him once for dinner with his wife since he got back so I'm looking forward to catching up with him on the goldfields here in NSW shortly. When I told him I was preparing to head out again they immediately asked if they could come along with me. I think we might move some larger rocks in the river this time and take a look at some older workings. On one trip we found an enormous pile of slate where the old timers had stripped the creek-bed to get to the gold and I can't help but wonder if they left some untouched ground under all that slate. So many places to poke around and it's often exhausting when you get out there and put in some hard work. So many places to explore. I guess I still have the Gold Fever.

Slate and slate type rocks are a pain in the bum , in a sluice box , they will not roll down .

Minermike wrote:Slate and slate type rocks are a pain in the bum  , in a sluice box ,  they will not roll down .

They also scour your gold out too. The only grace is that slate is gold country.

Off, like flies.

Someone wrote a book called that. Maybe 20 30 years ago.
About the old timers who were still alive but getting on. Kalgoorlie.

Maybe its time to do it again with the next generation before they pass on.

Hakey could be an example... oops, too late...
They Lady of the Lake.. no, but she probably wrote her own story..

Any suggestions ?