Tim works at Miners Den Australia’s Bendigo store ‘BendigoGold’. As our resident treasure hunter he is available to offer Miners Den Australia customers advice and support in their treasure hunting adventures. Tim will be sharing his finds and advice regularly on the Miners Den Australia blog, so make sure you check back to see some fantastic finds!

I was always interested in Gold and when I was around 11 years old I found small pieces of gold specking and panning in a creek near my house, and a family friend who was a long time gold prospector sold me my first detector when I was 12 in 1996. It was a Garrett Groundhog that I still own.

I only found one piece of gold with the Garrett Groundhog detector but still loved using it for general detecting, finding the odd coin and relic around Bendigo.

When I was 17 I was considering buying a professional detector to get back into it and I decided to hire the latest model gold detector The Minelab GP Extreme from Trackline Detectors in 2002 and I found a 1gm nugget the first time I hired it, I was hooked on detecting from then on.

I persevered with gold prospecting owning many models until 2010 when I decided to branch out into Coin & Relic detecting as well. I found the occasional interesting relic when gold prospecting and thought treasure hunting was a natural extension to my Gold Prospecting hobby.

I hired a Minelab E-TRAC from Trackline detectors to find relics and coins and discovered an 1838 English shilling and a nice cricket belt buckle in an old hotel site in Bendigo.

I bought my first proper treasure hunting machine, the Minelab E-TRAC and visited all the old sites I found whilst gold detecting years before specifically targeting coins, relics and interesting historic items.

I’ve since upgraded to the latest treasure machine the Minelab CTX 3030 and a Minelab GPX 5000 for gold prospecting.

Whenever I go out on the weekend (every weekend), I take the treasure machine looking for relics and the GPX 5000 for gold prospecting as I enjoy both.

If you have anything you would like assistance with please email him timkrause@minersdenaustralia.com.au

This is the cricket belt buckle I found with my first Minelab E-TRAC hire.

This is the 1838 Shilling I found when I first hired a Minelab E-TRAC. It’s worn but you can make the date out on the bottom.