1) Cold out? Dress Warm
2) Nearly every day 1-2 hours unless bad weather, burned out or family commitments
3) I use rechargeables. A set usually lasts about 2 years, then just won't hold a charge long enough
My wife supports my hobby, after all I recently bought her a car after cashing in my gold finds.
Who would have ever guessed that gold would reach the plateau which it had near the end of 2010. And who would have guessed that using a metal detector to search for metal targets would find gold. Fast forward to early 2011, and you will be amazed at all the gold rings, gold necklaces, bracelets and diamonds which my Garretts have found.
Gold didn't come easy when I first started metal detecting. In fact, I found zero gold during my first two years metal detecting. The coins and some rings were plentiful, however, gold was the missing card. But, as the years went by, patterns started repeating themselves, and finding gold became easier. Two of the most important entities for finding gold are metal detector and location. My Garretts had no difficulty finding gold rings (if they were there), and researching locations became easier as time went on also. Finding some old beaches which had dried up years ago helped, and so did busy current beaches. Not living near water, I wanted to find a niche where gold rings could be found on land, near home. Well, I found that too. Sports fields!
The Garrett Scorpion had a natural attraction for gold, as that's what it's 15kHz ground hog Circuitry was designed to find. It it worked well....plain and simple. For water, I used a water proofed ACE 150, then moved up to an Infinium. Now a lot of people warned me that a PI (pulse induction) metal detector was not a very good instrument for fresh water lakes. Nothing could be further from the truth. It excelled in the water, and found a lot of jewellery missed by others using non PI detectors. It sure pays (literally) to make your own decisions, and had I not used my Infinium, I would have missed lots of gold rings and chains.
I recently separated my gold jewellery into piles - rings, chains and bracelets. The price of gold was at an all time high and it was time to sell. I must admit, I suffered a little separation anxiety. Those gold finds brought back a lot of great memories from hunts. But on the other hand, there was nothing sentimental about each piece. They were just "found" somewhere, either lost or thrown. I did manage to return a few to the rightful owners. Prior to packaging them for the refinery, I allowed each of my 4 kids and wife to pick out a favorite ring and keep it as a keepsake. The rest, 99 rings were sent!
About 3 weeks later, I was rewarded with a cheque for $9,387.80. I couldn't believe my eyes! It just so happened that my wife's vehicle had recently broken down, and it was questionable due to it's age whether we should even repair it. It didn't take very long to make a decision, and a good one at that to replace it with a newer car.
Two weeks later, we found a nice Toyota Yaris, great condition and good on gas to replace our old gas guzzler.
A happy wife = a happy life!
John - Edmonton
