Description
The last two minutes of panning is where the gold is won or lost. By then you are down to a spoonful of black sand and whatever came with it, and a big pan is the wrong tool for that job. The XP Gold Pan 27 cm (11 in) is the finishing pan: small enough to control precisely, with the same four working zones as its bigger brother, so the fine gold that survived the creek survives the cleanup too.
Why a small pan earns its place
A 15 in pan moves material. An 11 in pan reads it. Once your concentrate is down to a handful, the smaller diameter lets you tilt, swirl and stop with a precision that a wide pan full of water simply does not allow. This is the pan you finish in, and XP also names it the recommended size for children, because the same thing that makes it precise makes it manageable in smaller hands.
The four panning zones
| Large 90 degree riffles | The first clearing step. Washing off bulk and capturing large to medium sized gold. |
| Mini riffles | Higher separation between sand and gold. They trap small gold dust and let sand drain away. |
| Snake skin texture | XP's surface in place of a conventional smooth sandy zone. It grips fine gold at exactly the finishing stage this pan is built for. |
| Flat base | A stable working floor for the final concentrate. |
| Blue color | Complementary to yellow, so gold shows against it better than in a black pan. It matters most here, on the smallest color. |
Pair it with
This pan is a finisher, not a starter: you want something bigger to do the bulk work. The XP Gold Pan 37 cm (15 in) is the working pan, and this one nests inside it. Screen first with the XP Gold Classifier #10 and, for a finer second cut, the XP Gold Classifier #5. The XP Gold Pan Premium Kit pairs both pans and both classifiers with the collecting accessories in one box, which is the cheaper route if you want all of it.
Who it is for
Prospectors who already have a working pan and keep losing color at the end. Anyone cleaning up concentrate at home from a day's sluicing or detecting. And parents teaching a kid to pan, where an 11 in pan they can actually hold is the difference between a hobby and a bad afternoon.
Where this fits
Our Gold Recovery Equipment Guide walks the whole recovery chain and explains why finishing is its own step, or browse the rest of our gold recovery equipment. XP designed this range to pair with their high frequency XP metal detectors.
Who you are buying from
History Seekers is a small American business and a working detecting channel: over 1.1 million people follow our hunts on Facebook and YouTube. We are an authorized XP dealer, everyone here detects and prospects, and the person who answers your call has real dirt time.
The story is more important than the artifact.