The New Gold Panning Is Easy

Rating:
Summary: Little Substance - Lot's of Self Promotion
Review: It's hard to imagine this book being of much value even for a true and complete novice to prospecting. Written with blatant self promotion in mind for other Garrett products there is little if any substantive information on panning that could not be reduced to 4 or 5 pages with a couple of diagrams added. Would appear author may have been paid by the word given the tedious repetitions found throughout. Truly basic and nothing new here - spend your money elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Little Substance - Lot's of Self Promotion
Review: It's hard to imagine this book being of much value even for a true and complete novice to prospecting. Written with blatant self promotion in mind for other Garrett products there is little if any substantive information on panning that could not be reduced to 4 or 5 pages with a couple of diagrams added. Would appear author may have been paid by the word given the tedious repetitions found throughout. Truly basic and nothing new here - spend your money elsewhere.

Rating:
Summary: Gold Panning Is Easy
Review: The book was well written in easy to understand language. The pictures were good. However it sounded like an advertisement for Garrett Metal Detectors and products.

Mr. Labal seemed to lack detailed knowledge about dry washing in the desert and dry washers in general. Dry washers do more than "vibrate" to extract the gold. Some use air and some use a combination of both. He talked about the lack of water in the desert and how drywashing was the only way to get the gold out. There is some truth to this but there are portable sluices or wet washing machines which use recirculated water to separate the gold from the "pay dirt". Most people who dry wash take wash tubs and containers of water with them. This allows them to use a gold pan and water to separate the gold from the concentrated material dry washers produce.

The book was revised in 1992 and needs to be revised again. There have been many advances in recreational prospecting equipment in the last decade and the book needs to reflect that.

As president of my local prospecting club I would recommend this book to any beginning prospector. I learned that my gold pan can do more than I thought it could!

Rating:
Summary: Gold Panning Is Easy
Review: The book was well written in easy to understand language. The pictures were good. However it sounded like an advertisement for Garrett Metal Detectors and products.

Mr. Labal seemed to lack detailed knowledge about dry washing in the desert and dry washers in general. Dry washers do more than "vibrate" to extract the gold. Some use air and some use a combination of both. He talked about the lack of water in the desert and how drywashing was the only way to get the gold out. There is some truth to this but there are portable sluices or wet washing machines which use recirculated water to separate the gold from the "pay dirt". Most people who dry wash take wash tubs and containers of water with them. This allows them to use a gold pan and water to separate the gold from the concentrated material dry washers produce.

The book was revised in 1992 and needs to be revised again. There have been many advances in recreational prospecting equipment in the last decade and the book needs to reflect that.

As president of my local prospecting club I would recommend this book to any beginning prospector. I learned that my gold pan can do more than I thought it could!

Rating:
Summary: Expensive advertisement!
Review: This book does describe how to wet pan, dry pan and a few other things...BUT it is a very expensive advertisment for Garrett Metal Detectors and the "new" plastic pan. Very disappointed in content. Pictures are ok but not worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: Expensive advertisement!
Review: This book does describe how to wet pan, dry pan and a few other things...BUT it is a very expensive advertisment for Garrett Metal Detectors and the "new" plastic pan. Very disappointed in content. Pictures are ok but not worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: Expensive advertisement!
Review: This book does describe how to wet pan, dry pan and a few other things...BUT it is a very expensive advertisment for Garrett Metal Detectors and the "new" plastic pan. Very disappointed in content. Pictures are ok but not worth the money.

Rating:
Summary: Hits the nail on the head
Review: This is a comprehensive book on panning. Two things stand out for me. One, there is a by-the-numbers recipe for wet panning that is more detailed than any other book that I have read. Two, this is the only work that describes, in detail, dry panning.