(The Epoch Times)—Joe Marihugh caught the gold bug years ago while running buckets of sand through a washer to extract flakes of the precious yellow metal.
He and his wife once ran 50 buckets to retrieve two grams of gold, which was worth nearly $200 at the time.
Since then, he has been using his dependable Minelab Gold Monster 1000 metal detector, with high expectations and his eyes fixed on the ground.
“I love searching for gold. It’s what we do,” Marihugh said as he swept the metal detector’s search coil across the hard, dry soil south of Tucson, Arizona, hoping to discover something valuable beneath the surface.
On March 22, Marihugh and more than 20 members of the Desert Gold Diggers set out to make profitable discoveries during the club’s annual spring outing for metal detecting.
Like forensic investigators searching for evidence, the metal detectorists worked with focused determination in a close formation under the bright morning desert sun.
“There are people out here that do find gold nuggets,” said club president Ralph Montano. “I tell everybody: you’re not going to get rich” metal detecting, but, “you might get lucky.”
It’s not just the thrill of the hunt that draws metal detector enthusiasts, like the Desert Gold Diggers, to remote locations in search of hidden treasure.
It’s the attraction of discovering precious metals following gold’s recent surge to more than $3,000 an ounce—marking the first time in U.S. history.
At the same time, silver continues rising and is more than $34 an ounce.
Montano told The Epoch Times that it’s not merely by chance that the club has been receiving more inquiries from individuals interested in metal detecting.
There seems to be a direct connection between gold prices and interest in the hobby.
“We’ve gotten a lot of interest lately. In the last couple of months, we’ve gotten a lot of new members,” Montano said.
“They’re coming out and learning from us about what equipment they will need and what to look for—how to look for the spots that might produce.”
Not since gold reached an all-time high of $1,896 and silver hit $49.52 per ounce in 2011 have precious metals—often considered “barbarous relics” in the financial world—commanded such prices.
A Global Run On Gold
According to investment consultant T. Rowe Price, there are several factors causing the price of gold and silver to breach the $3,000 high-water mark.
Since late 2022, the company observed that the long-standing inverse relationship between gold prices and real interest rates had become disconnected from the U.S. dollar and stock market.
“This reflects the growing influence of global fiscal policies and currency debasement, a sharp rise in central bank buying, as well as an environment of heightened geopolitical risks,” T. Rowe Price noted.
“Geopolitical risks only seem to be growing. Wars rage in the Middle East and Ukraine. Conflicts between China and its neighbors are a looming threat.
“The coalition of countries hostile to the West will continue to look for ways to decrease dependency on the [U.S. Dollar] as a reserve currency and medium for international exchange.”
Gold.org reported that gold reached more than 40 new highs in 2024, with an additional 14 highs so far this year.
This significant upward movement is considered “no coincidence,” according to the analyst, who indicated that a potential “perfect storm” is forming for the yellow metal.
“The focus isn’t just the number itself but the pace at which gold has reached it. The jump from U.S. $2,500 [per ounce] to $3,000 took just 210 days—a notably faster move that underscores the momentum gold has built over the past two years.”
While the demand for retail gold and silver remains high, more adventurous individuals are discovering the potential riches of metal detecting.
“All detectorists have dreamt of making that one great find at some point,” noted the Massachusetts-based metal detector seller MetalDetector.com.
“The most common items found are usually older coins, gold or silver coins, gold nuggets, Roman coin treasures, medieval coins, ferrous metals, Civil War buttons, and other buried treasure or gold objects.”
Another Gold Rush?
Ron Shore, the owner of Windy City Metal Detecting in Chicago, has noticed a definite increase in metal detector sales since the price of gold surpassed $3,000 per ounce on March 14.
However, this recent “bump” in purchases is not nearly as substantial as the high volume of metal detectors he sold during the “gold rush” of the 1980s. The company was established in 1985.
In January 1980, gold first reached a price of $850 per ounce, marking a historic milestone.
Shore said that his customers are now seeking an economical way that will “help them find gold” as the price of precious metals trends higher.
“There’s a few people that know the cost of gold is up. They want to get into the hobby because of that,” he said.
“But it’s not even close to what it was in the 80s. I mean, there was literally a gold rush on. I had cars pulling up [outside the store.] I couldn’t get gold detectors in the cars [fast enough]—that’s literally how many were being sold.”
Shore said he hadn’t seen anything like it since he began metal detecting in the 1970s.
However, this could change if the value of gold continues to rise, and indications suggest that it will, he added.
In addition to metal detecting, panning for gold remains a popular activity for those interested in traditional prospecting methods, according to precious metals advisor GMR Gold.
There are several methods for gold prospecting. The traditional technique of gold panning can be enhanced by using a Rocker Box, also known as a cradle.
This tool is more efficient than simple panning, as it consists of a wooden box with a sieve and a rocking mechanism.
Another method is the sluice box, which features a long trough designed to capture gold particles while directing water and sediment through it.
In areas with scarce water, dry panning is an efficient method that relies on air instead of water to separate gold from the sediment.
“Many enthusiasts enjoy the thrill of panning for gold in rivers and streams, reliving the experiences of the early prospectors,” GMR Gold said on its blog.
Steve Moore, the marketing director of Texas-based electronic metal detector manufacturer Garrett, concurred that the rising price of gold has increased interest in electronic gold prospecting.
Moore said that Garrett, a privately held business, could not speculate on the actual increase in sales volume. Nonetheless, “we expect to see nice increases this year in our prospecting detector sales,” he said.
“Garrett will certainly expect additional sales in 2025 of our best prospecting detectors”—the Goldmaster 24k, specifically made for gold nugget hunting, and the Axiom, Moore told The Epoch Times.
Moore said that there is still subsurface gold to be found in many regions, including Australia, the Yukon, Arizona, California, and Nevada.
“One of the keys to finding gold is having a gold-producing region, which requires some research,” he said. “Then they must gain access to a claim where they can properly search.”
Marihugh credited his uncle with sparking his interest in gold prospecting during his youth. In 2010, the Gold Rush series premiered on the Discovery Channel, and from that moment, Marihugh said he was hooked.
“We’ve just been finding gold ever since. I’ve got ounces that I’ve found over the years.”
To illustrate, he presented a vial containing approximately a gram of gold flakes he recently discovered.
Other detectorists search parks where they may find lost rings and valuable objects, he said.
Gold Side-Hustle
“It’s out there—it’s still out there,” Marihugh said. “People lose rings. The kids lose necklaces.”
As gold prices continue to rise, he said: “It’s going to draw more and more people” to metal detecting as a money-making hobby or pastime.
“Ever since gold hit over $2,200, people have been getting out there more and more. I hope it keeps going up,” he said.
Montano said that Desert Gold Diggers formed about 35 years ago, and currently maintains 19 claims for members to search for buried treasure.
“I’m still learning since I started like six years ago” using an entry-level Garrett 250, he said.
Jose Lizarraga, a club member from Tucson, has been metal detecting for the past two years and used a Monster 1000 at the outing.
He believes it was his “beginner’s luck” to discover a gold nugget during another metal-detecting adventure.
“And so what I did is last year for our anniversary, I made it into a necklace,” Lizarraga told The Epoch Times. “That was my anniversary present for my wife. She loves it.”
Bob Burgette, 62, who hails from Wisconsin, began gold prospecting and metal detecting in his youth.
He currently has six Minelab metal detectors to search for various types of metal objects.
“I had a couple sisters that lived out here, so I came out and visited and I got hooked on looking for gold,” Burgette told The Epoch Times.
“They were more into arrowheads, but I used the same amount of time to go out and prospect in washes.”
One of his best discoveries was an 1886 Seated Liberty silver dime, which he found about a foot deep in the ground.
During the club outing, he uncovered a 1937 Indian Head nickel in good condition.
NGC Coin, an independent coin grading service, estimates that these nickels can sell for between 50 cents and $20, depending on their condition. Nickels with mint defects may fetch much higher prices.
Over time, such finds can offset the cost of a metal detector, said Burgette, who paid $399 for the Minelab machine he used on March 22.
“I’ve been all the way over to California and Oregon looking for gold. I found a nice big hefty 3-gram nugget [panning] over there,” he said.
“And when you see something like that, it just shines in your pan, you know—when the sun hits it. So it just gives you that gold fever.”
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
