100+ years old Whistle found by Treasure Tim with a CTX 3030

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Admin

I was detecting with my Minelab CTX 3030 treasure detector on the edge of a large gully which was known to be a Chinese camp in the mid 1850’s, hoping to find some lost Chinese coins and relics.

I could tell the area had been well detected before me but I would persist anyway. I Came across a visible hut site with chimney and wall remains and quickly dug up 4 Chinese coins amongst the rubble and also finding a matchbox with Chinese writing on it so I had a good idea this was a Chinese hut.

Finding mostly junk targets I got one more within the site which initially I couldnt tell what it was so I pocketed it and left the area for the day.

It wasn’t until I arrived home and cleaned the strange object to find it was a very old small brass whistle.

After a thorough cleaning i gave it a blow and found it to have a very loud ear-piercing tone!

Still works great after possibly 100 plus years underground. Was a great find and an old whistle is a first for me.

Fantastic Gold Specimen Found in WA

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Admin

A customer came into the BendigoGold store and showed us a wonderful gold specimen weighing 273 grams.

It was found using a Minelab SD2200 and a depth of 2 feet using a 16″ DD Nugget Finder coil in the side of a Garden Bed.

New Minelab GPX 5000 Owner Gold & Treasure Finds

Posted on December 13, 2012 by Treasure Tim

A BendigoGold customer sent us photographs of some of his finds that he had found with a recently purchased Minelab GPX 5000.

All the finds were found within 20 minutes of the Ballarat Area.

Above is a sample of the gold nuggets that were found. The fifty cent coin is for size comparison.

The treasure finds above were also found with the Minelab GPX 5000.

The Finds above include:

Top Left – An 1842 Silver English Fourpence – next to it is a 1952 Penny that had been used as target practice
Copper Buttons
A Lead Ink Well found at 45cm depth
3 Chinese Coins
Bottom of the Photo – 2 Trade Tokens, difficult to read but one is dated 1857
Below the 50 cent piece is an old Silver Charm in the shape of a Flintlock pistol found near old diggings
There is also one rather large bullet bigger than anything the customer had seen before.

Minelab CTX 3030 Discovers Lost Treasure

Posted on December 12, 2012 by Cory

I decided one weekend to become acquainted with the new Minelab CTX 3030 and coming from a GPX background thought it might be a bit of a challenge.

I spent some time in the front yard and pulled a number of decimal coins that other detectors had missed.

I found with a few small tweaks I was able to use the machine quite effectively.

Later that day a good friend who has a home handy man service, called me to say a friend of his had lost a very sentimental (and expensive) gold and garnet crucifix and asked if I could run my detector over the area to try and find it. I explained I had the latest Minelab machine to try and he was quite excited.

We arrived at the house and after some small talk I was escorted around the back to the remains of an old fire pile, 20 years worth in fact…..

It was littered with melted metal scraps and blobs and general debris. From my brief experience with the Minelab CTX 3030 I had worked out the gold cross would likely give me a low tone, so off I began. There were targets left, right and center and I feared I would not find the one I was after.

4 minutes in and I came across a different and distinctly low tone. I scraped some debris away, and there it was gleaming at us.

The owners looked on in amazement as I produced the crucifix- probably looking as stunned as I!

That was a great feeling to reunite such an exquisite piece of jewellery with its owners and is testament to the capabilities of the Minelab CTX 3030 even in the hands of a new user!

The lost crucifix which was found with the Minelab CTX 3030

Great Treasure finds from Previously Worked Ground

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Admin

I had a site I wanted to work over but it been worked over by detectorists for years because it’s on the side of the road and well known pub site.

I thought I’d give it a go anyway, to my surprise I found many many deep objects, local tailors buttons, spoons etc.

I got a signal at the back of the site which I suspected would be another button by it’s sound and about 6” down I pulled out a beautiful 1852 gold half sovereign, also nearby a really good condition 1874 shilling.

I also found a lot of other interesting relics in this same area, because of the depth of all the objects in this site I decided to dig a small amount of top soil away in the high trash areas and re-detect the ground and found the cricket belt buckle.

It surprised me that all that stuff has been missed by other detectorists over the years.

More Great Minelab GPX 5000 Finds!!

Posted on December 5, 2012 by Admin

A customer recently came into the BendigoGold store to show us some pieces he had found whilst out with his new Minelab GPX 5000 metal detector that he had purchased approximately 2 weeks beforehand.

One piece was a gorgeous 11.8 oz quartz specimen which was found at approx 400 mm depth using a Nugget Finder 12″ x 7″ coil.

Another 18.05 gram piece was found about 30 meters away from the quartz specimen the previous week.

Other numerous other nuggets were also found weighing about 16.45 grams in previously worked ground.

All up there was about 10-12 hours spent using the Minelab GPX 5000 to find these great pieces.

First Cricket Belt Buckle Found with the Minelab CTX 3030

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Treasure Tim

Not long after I purchased the Minelab CTX 3030 treasure detector, I went over many sites that I had already detected with the Minelab E-TRAC and found a lot of stuff that I had missed.

This cricket belt buckle was found at a new site I found while detecting my old spots.

It is the first cricket belt buckle found with that I have found with the Minelab CTX 3030.

I was happy to find it in one piece and with its centerpiece.

63 Kg Quartz Specimen Found Containing aprox 14 kg’s of Gold

Posted on November 27, 2012 by Marco

A regular customer came into the Miner’s Den Sydney store and brought in an enormous 63 KILOGRAM specimen of quartz the other day. He’d found it with his Minelab GPX 5000 metal detector very close (within 25 feet) of his last major find.

He brought in the quartz because I’d asked him to show me the next chunk before he crushed it to extract any gold. We photographed the quartz and found that it did indeed have a strong metal content inside.

This specimen triggered a strong response from the Minelab GPX 5000 metal detector and even the store’s Minelab Pro-Find 25 Pin Pointer before crushing.

The ingot below is HALF of what came out of the specimen: 7,134 grams. The second ingot was almost the same weight.

The large slab of quartz and a smaller one combined to produce just over 14 kg’s of fine gold.

Worth in excess of over $700,000.00 at the time of sale.

This is the second such specimen brought in by the same prospector within four months.

Blazing Gold!

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Admin

Two local BendigoGold customers and two friends were visiting Bendigo and went to the Whipstick Bush for a few hours metal detecting after a burn off was completed.

They detected over a recently burnt area and 8 small nuggets were discovered along with numerous other targets.

Burnt branches and piles of ash continued to give off false signals but target signals came through loud and clear.

A great collection of finds!

Historic Bendigo Town Medal Found

Posted on November 19, 2012 by Treasure Tim

Treasure Tim found a historic 1887 Bendigo Sandhurst Town medal which was made to commemorate Queen Victoria’s jubilee.

It was found when Treasure Tim was gold prospecting in Bendigo with a Minelab GPX-4500 in a gold mining tailings area, which was full of rubbish and gold.

See the image of the medal Treasure Tim found below. If you would like to see what the orginal medal looks like and to read more about the history of the medal please visit Museum Victoria