Metal Detectors Super Store

Modern Prospecting The New Generation Gold Detectors. Are They Worth It?
By James E. Mulkey
Reprinted with permission from Lost Treasure: October 2000

A prospector by the name of Roy, who winters near Blythe, Calif., asked me the other day if I thought he should buy one of the newer generation of gold detectors such as the Fisher Gold Bug 2 or one of the new Minelab detectors. Now, Roy’s a man who’s more of a game show watcher than a prospector, so at first I didn’t take him seriously; that is, until I learned he had come into a little money. “I’d like to hunt for nuggets over around Quartzsite, Ariz., this winter before I return to northern Califor­nia,” Roy said, “but my detector is pretty old. My buddy Tom has one of the original Fisher Gold Bugs, but what I’d like to know is whether or not the new Gold Bug 2 or one of the new Minelab gold detectors is worth the money?” “Yes, absolutely!” I said. “I guess you’ve heard about Dale Schutte, the owner of Kinney’s Rocks & Gems, who has found 100s of nug­gets in Arizona’s La Paz district a few miles from Ehrenburg with his new Minelab gold detector. “Yeah, I remember reading about it in the Blythe paper, the Palo Verde Times, “ Roy said. “But I know for a fact that he also has an older gold detector he bought years ago! What I want to know was what was it that made him spring for a new one?” “Yeah, that’s right!” I said. “Dale started out with a first generation gold detector a good brand name unit he bought about seven years ago — but when he borrowed a Minelab SD-2100 gold detector from his buddy, Pieter Heydelaar, he became con­vinced that he had to own a Minelab no matter what the cost. Dale had been over the same ground dozens of times with his old detector where he had found more than a few nuggets, but when he used one of the newest generation of gold detectors, by Minelab, he began finding 100s of nuggets. “What’s the Minelab detector got that the others haven’t?” Roy asked. “There are three or four gold detec­tors put out by the folks at Minelab,” I said. “First, there’s the XT-18000 triple frequency detector, a unit which I have had experience with which has automatic ground bal­ancing, an important fea­ture here in the desert where the soils are highly alkaline.” “What would it cost to buy one?” Roy asked. “Although they list for $930, you can buy one at discount for about $790, ”I replied. Then, there’s the Golden Hawk that’s made by Minelab. It’s a less expensive, but very capable version, of the SD, or Super Deep, series made by Minelab, such as the SD-2100 like Dale has or the SD-2200D which Pieter Heydelaar bought for his wife.” “What’s the Golden Hawk got?” Roy asked. “Three gold finding fre­quencies, three ground tracking modes: fixed for automatic, one for fast and one for slow scanning,” I said. “It’s priced at about $1,000 at discount and was designed with the recreational gold hunter in mind.” What’s Dale use?” Ray asked. “I mean, I’ve seen his nuggets and I was really impressed with their size and number!” “Dale bought a Minelab SD-2100 gold detector and paid around $2,800 for it,” I said, “He says it paid for itself during the first week he used it when he found several ounces of gold. It’s a unit used by professional nugget-shooters like Peter Heydelaar, who like Dale, also owns an older gold detec­tor as a backup.” “Who is Peter Heydelaar, any­way?” Roy asked. “Pieter is a well-known author of several books on nugget shooting who spends several months each year in the gold fields of Australia searching for nuggets with his wife,” I said. They both use Minelab gold detectors and sell the gold they find at gold shows and rock and gem shows like the ones in Quartzsite and Tucson, Ariz.” “Pieter owns both a Minelab SD-2100 and an SD-2200D,” I contin­ued. “The SD-2200D is a new high performance gold detector with sev­eral modes of discrimination, auto­matic ground balance, a boost am­plifier to amplify weak signals and tone control to be used to adjust the signal tone to your hearing. Minelab claims that both the SD-2100 and the SD-2200D will penetrate in excess of three times the depth of conven­tional gold detectors, an important feature in this day and age. The SD­2200D retails for about $3,500.” Roy and I then drove down to Dale Shutte’s place so Roy could try out a Minelab SD-2100 gold detector and talk to Dale about his prefer­ences and complaints. To start things off, I asked Dale what he liked best about the new Minelab detector. “It’ll go deeper than anything I’ve ever  used,” Dale said. “The only problem is that the battery pack is kind of heavy at eight pounds!” Dale spends three full days each week from sun up until sundown prospecting for nuggets with his Minelab SD-2100 in the old placer fields of western Arizona and Impe­rial and Riverside Counties of southeast California. “How long does the rechargeable battery last?” Roy asked. “I get a good eight hours out of it,” Dale replied, “by which time I’m usually ready to call it quits.” “How do you know where to go to find nuggets?” Roy asked.  “I spend a lot of time going over top maps once I find, or hear about, an area where gold was found in the past by the old-timers,” Dale replied. “For instance, there are several abandoned lode mines, like the Red Cloud mine, and a whole bunch of placer fields in California’s Chuckwalla Mountains. Recently, a lady friend and I found a half-dozen nuggets in those areas” “Yeah, and when he got back to his four-wheel drive Toyota on one of those trips, he found he had left the lights on all day and had a dead battery!” I said, chuckling “Yep!” Dale said, giving me an annoyed look. “We had to hike all night —171 miles — to the Interstate and use a call box to be rescued. Couldn’t walk for a week!”