G'day Deano, You've got the right idea by starting your prospecting adventures with a pan and a sluice. Mastering your panning technique won't take that long, and the addition of a sluice will let you process much larger amounts than a pan alone. There are many pans on the market and all of them catch gold. Some are designed for competition speed panning such as the turbo style pans and others are more suited as cleanup pans.
Many prospectors choose one of each in their arsenal. My personal choice if you were to pick one pan only would be the Garrett Super Sluice as it is about the most versatile on the market. By having 2 decent gravity traps and a large base it can handle both "wet" and "Dry" panning. Dry panning with a "speed" style pan is less efficient.
A metal detector is usually the next step down the prospecting road, and its an item which requires much thought before purchase. It has to compliment where you will be spending most of your time, hence so many specialized units on the market. Not much benefit in buying a specialized gold detector for the beach and same for a specialized coin detector for gold.
The good thing about joining a forum like this one, is you get a variety of responses from dedicated prospectors, which helps tremendously with making up ones mind on equipment purchases. Best of luck,
Cheers Wal.
