Mother load today!

[oldies1955]

Yup, I hit the mother load today....WHAT! does it always have to be yellow?

Went out today with a friend that took me to a patch that he had hunted a ways back.

Boy........did I get schooled on what to look for, the whys, the hows and the whatnots.

Im still trying to digest it all.

It was a reeeealy great day out and I leaned a ton!

I did help clean the place up a little more......#8 birdshot at about 2 feet deep...ok...2 inches.

wire, and some odd looking "nails"? bullet schrapnal, Shotgun shell bases and other goodies.

To the left of the photo are some nails. They are brass and are serated. Cant figure out what the heck they are or what they were used for?

The pointed ends are peened over and if there were heads on them....they were worn off.

I found two kind of scattered around and then about 4 in a 1 foot spot.

Anyone know anything about what they may be?

Dug up some dirt and got a couple of small pieces after I ran it through the trommel. May have gotten more but the dern Vac. decided it didnt want to run. Grrrr..

Enjoy!

Tom H.

[boulder dash]

Looks to me like the ones on the left are a boot tack. They have that bend to keep them in place on your boot. The gold you did find looks like gold that a gold bug 2 would easily find. I thought I showed you the super secret settings. Time to meet up again I guess.

[oldies1955]

Looks to me like the ones on the left are a boot tack. They have that bend to keep them in place on your boot. The gold you did find looks like gold that a gold bug 2 would easily find. I thought I showed you the super secret settings. Time to meet up again I guess.

I aint stiking my face in the dirt and blowing!

I was kind of doing some test digs for the dry washer at the outings at Rich hill.

And....I aint sticking my face in the dirt and blowing!!!

Tom H.

P.S. I still remember and use the super secret settings

[adam]

May have gotten more but the dern Vac. decided it didnt want to run. Grrrr..

Enjoy!

Tom H.

Get yourself a Stihl vac motor. An extra challenge with big rewards would to buy a Stihl backpack blower and mod it to fill buckets with gravel & gold.

[AZNuggetBob]

Hey Tom

I had a good time. That patch has produced some pretty big nuggets in the past and it

didn't look like to many people have found it yet from what I saw.

I think if the EMI wasn't so bad we may have done better. at least there is a little less junk in there for next time. should help the next time you hunt it

and also knowing where best nugget finds were found should give you a little edge too..There is some deep ground in there you may want to hit with that monster coiltek coil too.

Almost all of my finds yesterday were old and still buried but just #8 shot and bullet shavings.

Take care Tom, AzNuggetBob

[oldies1955]

Hey Tom

I had a good time. That patch has produced some pretty big nuggets in the past and it

didn't look like to many people have found it yet from what I saw.

I think if the EMI wasn't so bad we may have done better. at least there is a little less junk in there for next time. should help the next time you hunt it

and also knowing where best nugget finds were found should give you a little edge too..There is some deep ground in there you may want to hit with that monster coiltek coil too.

Almost all of my finds yesterday were old and still buried but just #8 shot and bullet shavings.

Take care Tom, AzNuggetBob

Yup, yup yup...it was a good time

You were still killing it with the GB2 on deep open ground.

Yah, that UFO kept screwing me up about every 30 mins. Figured I would just take a break at those times and eat my scooby snacks.

Most of my stuff was buried and old also. The shotgun bases were on the top but thier paper shells had rotted off. That makes them kind of old as they were not plastic.

Will deffinently take the big coil up there and "crawl" around with it

Tks again

Tom H.

[beepinpete_WA]

Tom & Bob

Sounds like you both had a great day out swinging the magic wands.

There's nothing like a couple of buds getting out in a known gold producing area

and having a great time together....

Tom, time to dust of the dry blower for your next visit there with the look of that gold.

And hey! all of my ex wifes reckin i looked my best when on my knees hahahaha.

Great report guys, keep em rollin.

Pete

[Old Tom]

I told Tom what I thought that those short brass nails were and he won't beleive me. I think that they were from hob nailed boots common around timber areas but not too good on smooth rock and such. They were forced or screwed in the soles and bent over to keep from hurting the foot. The heads are worn off these at about the same length. The reason they were all found at the same place is the boot rotted off and left the nails in the same place. Anyway he got more than I did as I can't go out swinging just yet. I'll be at the Quartzite gathering the end of this month though and will be looking to see all you guys and gals.

Old Tom

[beepinpete_WA]

Old Tom you hit the nail on the head (pun) they are hob nails from boots mate.

We find em here in WA and they sound just like a small slugs o gold the buggers, ours are steel not

copper but they get the blood boiling just the same.

Real glad to hear your on the mend Tom, Hek mate, what would holliwood do without STINKY PETE the prospector :P

All jokes asside Tom, i'm real glad you pulled through buddy to another patch mate.

Its your sort that keep it real Tom

Pete

[notoriouskelly]

Tom,

Fun junk and I bet the instruction turns out more valuable than the gold!

[Old Tom]

Thanks for the encouragement Pete but it will be a while before I get to digging like your little animation guy. Just watching what you guys are doing over there is really uplifting and making me chomp at the bit to get it going again. You do make some good videos and we all enjoy them so much. Makes us feel like we are right out there with you. Good on ya mate.

Old Tom

[oldies1955]

I told Tom what I thought that those short brass nails were and he won't beleive me. I think that they were from hob nailed boots common around timber areas but not too good on smooth rock and such. They were forced or screwed in the soles and bent over to keep from hurting the foot. The heads are worn off these at about the same length. The reason they were all found at the same place is the boot rotted off and left the nails in the same place. Anyway he got more than I did as I can't go out swinging just yet. I'll be at the Quartzite gathering the end of this month though and will be looking to see all you guys and gals.

Old Tom

I can see how they could be used for hob nails.....but why make them out of a soft metal?

Steel is cheaper and last longer. Unless they didnt want to make any sparks and blow themselves up in the desert?

The smaller boot tacks I find are made out of steel.

Just dont make sense to me.

I guess it could be after looking at this link..

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.bunkermilitaria.com/EBAY-2009-11/4481_01.JPG&imgrefurl=http://www.bunkermilitaria.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc%3FScreen%3DPROD%26Product_Code%3D4481%26Category_Code%3D&usg=__BtkI6LZNxU8gq95OSGpogXOlAHc=&h=480&w=640&sz=178&hl=en&start=11&zoom=1&tbnid=3wtnwpnDPPoc8M:&tbnh=103&tbnw=137&ei=EilyUJTEFIviqAHE14GwDg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhobnails%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26gbv%3D2%26tbm%3Disch&um=1&itbs=1

Guess some old timer was bored one night and pulled them out and threw them around. Maybe he got tired of them poking his feet and pulled them out. They were over too wide of a area to be a rotted boot.

Tom H.

[frank c]

Nice gold Tom an that sweet 16 shell ain't too shabby either I used to have a sweet double barrel one years ago.

[oldies1955]

Nice gold Tom an that sweet 16 shell ain't too shabby either I used to have a sweet double barrel one years ago.

Frank:

Thats all dad and I shot for many, many years. Hated the kick of the 12 and felt like a 20 was shooting a pellet gun.

We would always pick up our shells after we shot so we could reload them.

Then we tried to figure out where the downed bird was!

Thats where the german shorthair earned its keep

Tom H.

[AZNuggetBob]

Hey guys ever since Tom found those brass serrated nails when we were out hunting the other day its been bugging me.

so I did a little checking and talked to an old friend thats a cobbler/boot repair guy and he laughed and told me what they were.

He gave me a crash course in boot construction. Boot construction 101.

anyway the brass ones were used in high priced boots on the stacked leather heels.

you've probably seen those old steel cobblers shoe anvils in the shape of a upside down foot.

When they drive the nails in from the bottom of the heel or sole the nail hits the steel anvil and bends over flat inside the shoe, then they put in a leather liner in the shoe so your not standing on bent over nail points. the serrations are so when the heads wear off the heel doesn't fall apart.

And while we're on this subject here is somthing else I get asked every once in awhile.

Why do I keep finding all these so called steel"Boot tacks" when I'm out prospecting with a metal detector?

If you find them that aren't bent over on the points,they are not all from shoes.

I had wondered about the source of these for years. there just seemed to be a lot of them out there.

Well I finally solved this mystery when I found an old timers dry washer stashed up in the hills one day many years ago. ya see back in the day heavy screens were expensive and just hard to find.

so the old timers took a sheet of tin and punched it full of holes with their pick to make a grizzly (punch plate).

then they had to attach it and the canvas bellows to the dry washer, this is where all those little steel round head tacks came in and either they got rattled out from use or rotted out the wood when the dry washers were abandoned.

And thats how most of these little round head steel tacks ended up getting scattered all over most gold fields. Take care guys, AzNuggetBob

[Uncle Ron]

Yo Bob ... I found a "grizzly" like you're talking about in the Vultures that is made from an old car front fender ... Also found an old pick head that was forged at the Vulture Mine with a "V" initial, plus some other tools, like an axe head, a couple of chisels--and, in the same area some very nice nuggets in the 1/4 to 1 OZT. range ... Cool place but I think I beat it to death ... ... Cheers, Unc

[AZNuggetBob]

Hey Ron

How could you tell it was a old car fender? did they beat it flat. That pick head is a great find Ron. It seems like the old timers used whatever they could find laying around. some of the craftiest low budget mining equipment I've ever seen was down in Mexico.

I wish I would have grabbed that old dry washer I found. It was way back up in the hills. I just didn't want to pack it out.It would have made a great display piece.

The last time I was out there it was gone, oh well. I do like finding those old tools, picks, crevicing tools etc.but them dang tacks have been driving me nuts for years.

Ya never know what your going to find out there. AzNuggetBob

[Uncle Ron]

Yo Bob ... The old fender "grizzley" was just the rounded fender from like a Model T or thereabouts with hundreds of holes beat into it ... There were sifted piles on the benches of the gully and a butt-load of rusty trash ... They obviously just shoveled in to the upside down fender like a big bowl or pan ... It's still out there ... If I brought it home and put it in my yard with all my other cool mining finds, it would just look like junk, even to a prospector ... It was in a hot area though, but it seems they were going for fines in this part of it ... I hit some goodies over the ridge from it .. Here's a picture of about half of them, by weight ... Some were found right down in ugly gray, hot, basalt ... Very unusual location, in that I've never found such nuggets IN, not on, basalt... Have you? ... Cheers, Unc

[AZNuggetBob]

Hey Ron I could just picture that fender strapped to the top of a dry washer. I dont drag home as many artifacts as I used too.

Nope never found a nugget in basalt, on basalt but never in it. they may have just sunk into it? those are some nice nugget photos. and very nice speci pieces too. you been kickin out there. I found quite a few nuggets out around Vulture a few years ago most were smaller, I think the biggest was about a 1/2 ozer not counting speci pieces but they were more quartz than gold. AzNuggetBob