Prospectors hoping to fund their retirement can now successfully search for gold in past locations with the help of a new, larger super-coil.

Minelab Electronics in South Australia have increased the coil for their highly successful GPZ 7000 hand-held metal detector from 14 inches to 19 inches.

The larger coil not only covers more ground in less time but its improved depth detection also helps search for gold previously too deep to detect.

The AU$1795 GPZ 19 Super-D coil was commercially launched in Australia on Monday ahead of its international distribution.

Southern Marketing Director for Australia and New Zealand Fraser Kendall said the interchangeable coil would be the ideal product for professionals and serious hobbyists.

He said the GPZ 19 had proven to be a significant upgrade on its predecessor the GPZ 14 with a detection depth increase of up to 30 per cent.

“The real difference is obviously the size, which increased from 14 – 19 inches, and what that does is gives it a wider ranger of ground to cover,” he said.

“It’s design and changed layout give it a number of better qualities, most significantly greater depth, which gives prospectors the ability to go back over old areas that had been prospected and allow them to keep searching.

“Our plan was to not only open new areas but reopen past search areas and the GPZ 19 does that.”

The detector allows users to map their location and log gold finds using an installed GPS unit and has had numerous successes across the globe.

In August, an Australian man used the GPZ 7000 to discover a 145-ounce gold nugget in central Victoria worth about AU$250,000.

The new coil enhances the overall performance of the GPZ 7000, improving coil geometry and creating less magnetic coupling between transmit and receive windings, which results in reduced ground noise.

The Super-D coil’s also has isolated suspension windings that are less prone to mechanical vibration noise.

Kendall said it had been tested on some of the world’s harshest soils and proven to work across a range of different terrain.

“The GPZ 19 is outperforming anything else in our line-up right now.”

The new coil was also tested in Australia, which is the world’s driest continent, and it has some of the world’s harshest terrain.

Minelab is a South Australian company but has regional offices in the United States and United Arab Emirates, specialising in advanced electronic technologies.

It is the world leader in consumer metal detecting technologies as well as humanitarian demining and military needs.

This article originally appeared on The Lead South Australia.