Making your own fortune with gold and gems

[ladyhk13]

Have any of you been watching Gold Rush or Prospectors (I think that's the name..they search for gems)? My BIL bought us a gold lease membership a couple of years ago which we have never made the time to go out and actually use but since watching these programs I'm wondering if it could be a nice untaxed and under the radar nest egg.

Have any of you panned for gold or searched for gems before, and not talking about those places where they dig you a bucket and sell it to you and a thousand other tourists either. I'm talking out in the creeks or mountains kind.

[Metrocruiser]

Hi ladyhk13
We have been panning a few times just before my 1st child was born. We were just doing it on gov owned land and we got a bunch of garnets. We have plans to start up again soon now that my kids are growing up a little.
Id like to get a claim somewhere and try a sluicebox.

[ladyhk13]

We went a couple of years go out in Nevada while family was visiting from Germany and had a blast. We gave all the gold we panned to the children to take back home with them. They were thrilled. I would actually love to go up to a little town called Chicken Alaska for a week or two but it's so far away and with dogs it's impossible to go away from home now. So we will be hanging around Tn and Ga for the most part.

[Metrocruiser]

I have not done much research into proper and acceptable methods but what I want to try is to build a sluice box and find a nice place to set up a camp for the weekend. Find a nice spot in a river bend and run the sb all weekend long saving up the heavy stuff into buckets to pan at a later date and or during if I can get the wife to get her hands dirty. All I'd need is a speck of fools gold and I might get a good 12 hours straight outta her lol.

Id love to find a safe place where we could offroad in, camp, shoot my rifles and prospect.

[bacpacker]

I haven"t tried it yet. But I have researched a couple areas not to far from our house (less than 100 miles) that was a good area a couple hundred years ago. It might still have a little left in it. Just need to go spend some time there scouting around to find a spot. IMO it is a great idea.

[ak474u]

I've done diamonds in Arkansas, found a little one once. Garnets in Idaho did pretty well, opals in chihuahua mx, tourmaline, topaz, beryl, in NM and CO, agates and jasper all over the southwest, and lots of other gems around the country. Haven't done it in years, but I wanted to be a jeweler when I was a teenager, and my dad has a geology degree, so we did lots of digging around. We did a few days of metal detector mining with a retired miner in NM, who had a played out claim he had bought years ago. He did cuts into the ancient river beds with a dozer, and dug nice nuggets out of the walls of the cut got a few little ones. He had also found a doubloon on a hilltop in the area years before. I'd love to know who dropped that.

[ElevenBravo]

The only gold around here, is...



Id *LOVE* to pan, for the fun of it... Doubt Id make a buck two ninety eight... but it would be a thrill to find a flake even!

EB

[ladyhk13]

BP we have a claim on Cocker Creek. It's off if SR 68. How far is that from you?

AK47...I would love to do gems but I don't know what I'm looking for in the raw. Stones look so different before they are tumbled or cut and I've tried to do internet searches on gem mining but nothing useful comes up.

[ak474u]

BP we have a claim on Cocker Creek. It's off if SR 68. How far is that from you?

AK47...I would love to do gems but I don't know what I'm looking for in the raw. Stones look so different before they are tumbled or cut and I've tried to do internet searches on gem mining but nothing useful comes up.

Lots of the stuff we got was on tips from old timers. Some of the places we went were private ranches, and more than a few were owned by college geology departments iirc, the Univ of New Mexico gave us permission to mine at several places through our gem and mineral club we attended at the time. Lots of states have day fee areas that you got permission by mail. Idaho had a 1 day per year pass for non-residents to dig garnets for like $7 per person, and you got it at a ranger station. There's probably a book out there somewhere that has all of the better known spots, and how to get access. We went with a guy once who was the retired president of Johnson and Johnson, that guy had all the good spots, we never left empty handed.

[Grumpy Old Man]

Panning for gold is a whole lot like work! But, if you really want to pan I would book a summer vacation to Nome AK.

http://www.blm.gov/ak/st/en/prog/nlc...d_panning.html

http://akaugold.com/