Worst prospecting equipment you have used?

KevinInColorado

Gold Member
Jan 9, 2012
7,037
11,369
Summit County, Colorado
Detector(s) used
Grizzly Goldtrap Explorer & Motherlode, Gold Cube with trommel or Banker on top, Angus Mackirk Expedition, Gold-n-Sand Xtream Hand pump
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Easy answer a Keene A-52. Quickly followed by the Goldclaw pan.
 

HappySwede

Full Member
Sep 25, 2017
106
191
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Falcon MD70 followed by EZ Sluice. Both waste of time.

Also all kinds of special pans that are supposed to make volume panning quicker, but only makes you tired quickly due to weight of the pan itself.
 

sprailroad

Silver Member
Jan 19, 2017
2,577
3,978
Grants Pass, Oregon
Detector(s) used
Garrett A3B United States Gold Hunter, GTA 1000, AT Pro, Discovery Treasure Baron "Gold Trax", Minelab X-Terra 70, Safari, & EQ 800, & Nokta Marko Legend. EQ 900.
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
What is the worst piece of equipment you have used or just didn't meet expectations? And why?
Well........To be honest with ya Iowa, the answer to that would be "ME". Why? Various body parts subject to break down and failure unexpectedly.
 

No gold in NY

Bronze Member
Mar 22, 2015
1,688
2,921
Detector(s) used
Whites Coin Master,
Whites Gold Master GMT, Whites MXSport
High banker/dredge,
DIY hand trommel,
DIY Miller table,
DIY fluidbed gold trap sluice,
Keene A-52 A-52s
2186 Wheaties
Primary Interest:
Other
Easy answer a Keene A-52. Quickly followed by the Goldclaw pan.

I am surprised at your answer Kevin. The A-52 seems to be a very popular tool among prospectors.
 

bobw53

Hero Member
Oct 23, 2014
522
1,132
Hatch, New Mexico
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I'm going to say the "Turbo Pan"... I could never get it to work, and you need a
huge tub to use the thing.

And I bought a black magic fine gold recovery sluice, basically a miller table with bumps...
What a waste of time that was, water, battery charger, angle, flow etc... Then you still
have to classify, and once you do that its so quick and easy to pan, that there is no point.

 

Goldwasher

Gold Member
May 26, 2009
6,077
13,222
Sailor Flat, Ca.
🥇 Banner finds
1
Detector(s) used
SDC2300, Gold Bug 2 Burlap, fish oil, .35 gallons of water per minute.
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Gold hog pan

Desert fox spiral wheel

Things I've seen in use and or heard nothing good about

Gold claw

AMP

turbo pan

I wouldn't even bother trying to make them work.


Things I've used listed here with more than acceptable results.

Keene A52

EZ sluice

Falcon
 

winners58

Bronze Member
Apr 4, 2013
1,729
4,058
Oregon
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
a pick & shovel I've seen people use them,

every time I use one I get blisters and a sore back.

all the gold just keeps falling back into the bottom of the hole.

seen people get good results digging the hole I halfway started.
 

gldguy1

Full Member
Apr 30, 2016
191
407
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
A gold pan, because I'm lazy and just want the rocks and dirt to wash themselves [emoji12] but seriously though probably a thing called a faucicers pan a buddy of mine gave me. The sticky sided grip tape wasn't water proof and came right off first use
 

Bejay

Bronze Member
Mar 10, 2014
1,026
2,530
Central Oregon Coast
Detector(s) used
Whites GMT
Garret fully underwater
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
The standard, "store bought", "neck down", crevice suction hose nozzle. Simply/utterly worthless. !
 

N-Lionberger

Bronze Member
Dec 1, 2013
1,359
1,950
Arcata, California
Detector(s) used
Fisher 1212-x
Fisher Gold Bug 2
Whites 4900/SP3
Dowsing rods
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
My most worthless pieces of gear are my turbo pan, it broke before I could even figure out how to use it. Jobe archer pan also broke while it still had the price tag on it lol. Proline pro pan, way too flexible, folds up like a taco with a load of dirt. Biggest hunk of junk is my AMP sluice box.
 

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Reed Lukens

Silver Member
Jan 1, 2013
2,653
5,417
Congres, AZ/ former California Outlawed Gold Miner
Detector(s) used
Tesoro Vaquero, Whites MXT, Vsat, GMT, 5900Di Pro, Minelab GPX 5000, GPXtreme, 2200SD, Excalibur 1000!
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
The 2005 model of the Dahlke Micro 4B gold dredge with the bent jet absolutely takes first as my worst ever experience, what a pile... The reason is here -
http://www.treasurenet.com/forums/dredging-hi-banking/467261-should-you-buy-dahlke-micro-4b.html

The Keene A52? Not the worst by far, in fact for many decades it was the best, the leader in this industry. Having that on here, in this list is rediculous being it was the sluice that was the foreruner to them all and copied by so many others...
Worst sluice - Colorado's own Sidewinder Sluice takes first or last actually being it's the worst 25+ pound joke a person can play on a newbie prospector...
Sidewinder Sluice (R)
 

Clay Diggins

Silver Member
Nov 14, 2010
4,862
14,180
The Great Southwest
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
Hacking on peoples pans or sluices seems almost pointless unless you are willing to list the big three:

1. Dowsing Rods
2. Long Range Locators
3. "Treasure" maps with symbols bigger than a town on a 1:500,000 scale map

The value of every other gold getting device is way more than these three.

Heavy Pans
 

bobw53

Hero Member
Oct 23, 2014
522
1,132
Hatch, New Mexico
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
For the record, I wasn't bad mouthing the Black Magic fine gold whatever... It does work, just takes
too much time and effort to setup and use...

Hacking on peoples pans or sluices seems almost pointless unless you are willing to list the big three:

1. Dowsing Rods

They're fun to play with. I bought a set to drive my better half nuts, she thinks they are just the dumbest thing ever...

I think I'm going to start pulling them out when she loses the remote in the couch cushions.
 

KevinInColorado

Gold Member
Jan 9, 2012
7,037
11,369
Summit County, Colorado
Detector(s) used
Grizzly Goldtrap Explorer & Motherlode, Gold Cube with trommel or Banker on top, Angus Mackirk Expedition, Gold-n-Sand Xtream Hand pump
Primary Interest:
Prospecting
I called out the A52 partly BECAUSE of what Reed accurately says. It was important just like the Ford Mustang in 1964. Awesome for its time but not so much by today’s standards.

The Sidewinder is worse (should come with wheels!) and dowsing rods omg yes. Both worse than the A52 to be fair.
 

Goldwasher

Gold Member
May 26, 2009
6,077
13,222
Sailor Flat, Ca.
🥇 Banner finds
1
Detector(s) used
SDC2300, Gold Bug 2 Burlap, fish oil, .35 gallons of water per minute.
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Lol dowsing rods

Sidewinder is so bad that I had pushed it out of my memory....

I put about two cups of black sand through a black magic and never used it again ...it was a freebie and I still wlt like a sucker.

Also bought a sniper snuffer widget once that pretty much broke cause I looked at it wrong.

A52 still doesn't belong on the list :)
 

Goldwasher

Gold Member
May 26, 2009
6,077
13,222
Sailor Flat, Ca.
🥇 Banner finds
1
Detector(s) used
SDC2300, Gold Bug 2 Burlap, fish oil, .35 gallons of water per minute.
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
Oh yea ...there was a guy on craigslist selling pre made welded steel gold traps to put in the creek over the winter.

Like $300 bucks he wanted
 

Bodfish Mike

Sr. Member
Dec 12, 2014
499
1,354
Bodfish and Marin county CA
Detector(s) used
Garrett , Whites
keene puffer drywasher , Keene A51 Sluice
Primary Interest:
Other
1) My first homemade drywasher I tried to use a small child's bike crank as the bellows mover. Fun to build but a real
piece of crap. The second one was not much better.
The third one is acceptable and I used it today and got some gold.

2) green gold pans I can't see the gold just the black sand.
 

crumbaker

Jr. Member
Feb 22, 2016
59
51
Primary Interest:
All Treasure Hunting
I have a recirculating highbanker, I forget the brand but it was really cheap. I think it might be ok with a different pump, but the bilge pumps that come with a lot of these really aren't powerful enough.
 

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