Just a question for prospectors scared of jumping into staking or buying their first claim, or confused owners of claims!

I put a poll up on the blog, asking what prices you would be willing to pay for a book which tells you EVERYTHING you need to know about owning and staking a mining claim. Why?

Well, I think about how many years it took me after graduating high school to stake my first claim, simply because the whole process was intimidating to me. After all that time I decided to just dive into it and meet every challenge head on until I got my claim staked, and recorded. I know a lot of guides exist, but a lot of them don't actually tell you everything involved. A lot of very helpful things are overlooked in them, and with every state being different there is really no TRUE step by step guide in existence.

I took myself through from start to finish. I had to learn it all the hard way, but I figure I can write that real step by step guide that is truly needed by so many people out there. A book written from actual field experience by someone like you, who hasn't been doing this professionally or was born into it. It really is one of those things "If I can do it, you can too".

At first I thought maybe buying a claim is the way to go. Is it? For one thing you don't know if it was staked properly. For another, unless you visit it yourself and test it yourself, and thoroughly research the area, can you really say you aren't being sold a worthless claim? If there are any errors in the paperwork, or in the boundaries or monuments it means if someone wanted your ground badly enough they could have it deemed invalid and your claim would be voided and free for anyone to claim again so long as they did it properly. Your mineral rights are only as secure as the accuracy of your markings and documents.

Then, you have a whole pile of paperwork to deal with. It's not so bad once you get the initial transfers or recordings done. But it can be stressful because the government runs on paperwork and it seems like you just file everything only to turn around and have to file more. A year doesn't seem to be as much time as it used to be. But then you have to know what forms need filed, what the fees are, and who to record them with, and whether they have to be notarized and etc.

Of course buying a claim can get quite expensive. Just because a claim is up for sale doesn't mean there is something wrong with it. Trust me, just because you have a gold mine doesn't mean you are on easy street. We are ALL millionaires, if we can just get it all out of the ground... But you see, people like you and I are small operators. A lot of us only get by on hand tools. Imagine there is a building in front of you. Further, imagine being told it contains a million dollars, but that you only have one minute to grab all of it you possibly can. You open the doors and the million you are within reach of grabbing is all in pennies. How do you cope with that? Well, if you find someone who can pay you enough that makes you happy, who perhaps knows he can more easily grab more of that wealth than you ever could, then it may be beneficial for you to part with it and let someone else be productive. If you don't want to be totally cut out there's always royalty deals too... I mean, sure, why not ask for a few percent of all future claim profits if it is a huge deposit. There are lots of good reasons to sell a mining claim, but everyone assumes all claims are bad or they wouldn't be up for sale.

A claim will only do good things for you if you actually get out and use it and work it. Oh, the stream is still doing it's job. It will still concentrate the deposits, making all those pockets of gold richer and richer for whoever finally does come in and dig it up, but unless that is you... And some people just aren't able to get out and do it so there you go, they get claim poor because the claim is costing them money and they are getting no benefit out of it.

There are so many things to consider... But my feeling was, well, why would I pay $2,000 for a little placer claim when I can just stake my own for a fraction of that price? If I spent in fees and overhead getting that done, then well hell, I paid myself $1600 for all the trouble of doing it, right? So that's the direction I took. But it isn't always possible. There are streams that are so renown and coveted we may never see a 20 acre section free for staking on in our lifetimes, so you bet buying and selling claims is an important function in the market place.

I just want to write that end all, be all, exhaustive guide to mining claims so that not only can you stake one or buy one, but you can know how to keep it and not lose it. It is overwhelming and confusing because there are a lot of things that just don't appear to make sense at first, and when you start working on it, all of a sudden it clicks... And when dealing with the government, you really can't afford to miss something, even a small something may cost you considerably more money to finally get everything done the way Uncle Sam wants it.

I will write this guide anyways, since it will contain high quality information, from start to finish, and everywhere in between, I just would kind of like to know what the average prospector would actually pay for such a guide. Pick all the prices you feel good about paying, but don't select a price that makes you back off. I will assume the highest price with the most votes is the retail price, sticker price lets say. I don't believe in overcharging, but I need to know what the consensus is on such a thing as this. And yes, the economy really still sucks, I know that. So... Thanks for cooperating and hope to see some activity here!

I can be followed on twitter @goldbaron357 for those who would like to follow my authors twitter and stay up to date on my various book projects.

The Realities of Gold Prospecting, and importance of perseverance

I had prospected for a week on a new claim I staked. The first clean up gave me two nice pickers. Just from a few buckets of gravel. The next several days yielded barren cleanups. Hardly even a color of flour. Had I only had those cleanups that came after, I would have thought the ground was poor and moved on to better streams and wrote it off of as a certifiably gold free stream. The fact my first cleanup gave me coarse gold, meant the opposite is in fact true. Had I not chose to dig where I did, and found what I found, I would have never known.

Before you give up on any stream, sample as much as possible. In my case, I was on the fringe of a past gold rush area. Also, the harder gold is to be found, the less likely anyone else will figure out there is gold there and want to go through the work of recovering it. I have found that while there are general guidelines to how gold deposits, each stream behaves differently. The ratio of boulders to gravel, the force of water at high and low water. The amount of clay if any is present. There are all kinds of variables affecting whether or not you find any gold where you are looking. Where you are looking in one stream may be good for that stream but on a different stream you may have to change how you look at things.

CHANGES TO BLM PLACER CLAIM FEES

Going back to 2012, the liberals did it to us again. Under the Obama administration, the BLM now charges you on EVERY 20 ACRE PORTION, or PORTION THEREOF, it's full assessment fee. Instead of Per Claim, it is Per 20 acres. So if you have a 20.01 acre placer claim you are going to have to pay $155 x 2. If you have a 160 acre association placer, you will owe 8 x $155... Dirty trick isn't it.

Added to that, the rental fee is NOW TIED TO THE CPI, or it has been for a little while. So... We are hit by inflation as well.

Small miner waiver is still good for $10 after your first year of owning the claim... BUT, you still have to actually do assessment work and record your affidavits to that effect.

Fun stuff isn't it.

This, my friends, is why we need to put a CONSERVATIVE in the white house next time around! Marxism is breaking us.

The propagation of anti-prospecting propaganda

Well, one of our greatest strengths is also our greatest weakness. We are losing our rights because we are such a small group as compared to hunters and fishermen. Yet the less who know that you REALLY CAN make good money prospecting for gold, the more opportunities remain for us that do know.

What prompted this post was seeing the CBS morning show or early show or whatever it is called... I just happened to turn the tv on and there it was, a segment on gold prospecting. Basically my take on it was, they are making us look foolish or greedy. They clearly do not understand gold fever.

Robert Service said it best when he wrote The Spell of the Yukon: "Gold is haunting and haunting and luring me on as of old yet it is not the gold I am wanting, so much as just finding the gold." And sorry if that was a paraphrase and not exact word for word but it is close enough for my purposes here.

I don't care how much gold I have. All I care about is finding it. That is the only thing that gives relief to the gold fever. It doesn't matter if it is a few specks of flour, or a few pickers. Doesn't matter if I turn a profit or not. I've certainly had profitable days, and I do have places I can go to make good wages off the land by digging gold. I've just been too busy with life to spend the amount of time doing it I want to.

But it just irks me that they say "Oh, you are going to spend $100 to make $10" or "No one ever got rich mining gold." Many fortunes were made. See, if a prospector made $10,000 a hundred years ago, divide by 20 and that is 500 $20 gold pieces. 500 $20 gold pieces now is worth 500 x $1400 roughly, or nearly $750,000 in todays money. Of course they never give you inflation adjusted prices and values. Would you seriously not be able to call $750,000 a fortune?

Also, the prospectors of the old days worked hard for their gold and they knew how to find it and they knew there was more where that came from. So, they mined like hell while the mining was good and spent it all enjoying life best they could while they could. Their not being rich from gold mining was not from a lack of success as much as it was from living high on the hog.

There are a lot of people, predominantly liberal democrats, that do not want to see people out digging for gold. They actually hate gold. They prefer their fiat money that can be printed in abundance to support a welfare state at the cost of the economic prosperity of those who actually work for a living. They do not want any kind of living to be made off of the earth. They think we destroy the environment.

Well, It is enough to say for the moment that sure, you wont become an overnight millionaire, but it is also true that when you are out mining, you are probably walking all over mineral wealth beneath your feet. Just think of all the times you have gone through mineral rich ground. You've probably stepped on millions of dollars without knowing it. And yes, you can get your share too if you don't give in to the propaganda. We aren't hurting anything by digging a few holes and washing a little dirt. In fact, prospectors remove potentially millions of pounds of trash and heavy metals out of streams every year. I've easily removed hundreds of pounds of lead mercury and garbage including fishing lures and sinkers in my lifetime of prospecting... Do any of you environmentalists truly want me to put everything back the way I found it? Or are you going to let me continue cleaning up the environment instead of talking about it as you guys do? And get this! No superfund project is needed to pay me to go out and do it either! I am perfectly happy cleaning up the streams for the gold I find doing it!

2nd Edition Gold Prospecting & Placer Deposits now available!

I finished rewriting and expanding Gold Prospecting & Placer Deposits, it is available in print for the first time from Amazon, as well as second kindle edition is available... Any of you who have already bought the kindle edition will receive a notice within a few weeks hopefully sooner that a new edition is available and you will be able to update your copy free of charge.

I hope to be adding some plans for prospecting equipment to this blog over the next couple weeks as well... I've seen some rather interesting home made sluice designs that are quite simple, and the cost to build is quite literally free, or at a bare minimum.

The revised edition and paperback is now available from https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0076F1GHS

What Bigfoot and Gold have in common

They do have much in common. Both are very elusive but are often seen. Yet, you cannot go out hunting for them with any guarantee of finding any. When you consider that 90% of our mountains and rock outcrops are covered with topsoil and heavy timber, the odds that what is exposed carries what we are looking for are diminished. Chances are someone has examined those outcrops, and areas that are in plain sight.

But the sheer size of our forests and mountains allow for yes, big foot as well as massive gold deposits, to remain undiscovered even amidst our technological age. By researching, and determining the most likely places to look, one can increase their chances. Afterall, yes there might be a 100 ounce per ton gold vein twenty feet below where you are camped, but you won't find it unless you dig or drill. You could drill random holes in random places, or instead focus on those areas that science and logic say gold probably would be. It is the same thing with big foot hunters. They look at topo maps, see where all the food sources are and determine the most likely regions to focus on. They don't just go out to random locations.

Version 2 of Gold Prospecting and Placer Deposits Out Soon!

After much thought, and feedback, I've planned a much more expanded and informative version of my Gold Prospecting and Placer Deposits: Finding Gold Made Simpler. The second version will have new chapters with more specific information, diagrams, and pictures illustrating examples of all the main points. Even the how to's will have pictures for each step in the process, from how to pan gold to properly setting up a sluice box. I will be adding plans for building mining equipment such as rocker boxes, sluices, and classifiers as well!

The current version is pretty much a nutshell of prospecting. It was not my intention to overwhelm the reader but rather provide a more introductory approach. Some of you no doubt may have read my book already. Never fear, those of you who have already purchased the book will have access to Version 2 once it is posted to Amazon.

I am planning to release this by the first week of June. I am wanting to turn out a first class book that reflects my passion for prospecting and captures far more of my knowledge than I was able to for your benefit. It is my first published book, and it was very much a learning experience. Once I've refined the book to the quality level I want it, I will begin putting it into print editions.


I want to thank all of you for making my blog and my book a successful venture.

This summer I will begin offering my entire sluice cleanups on my blog and eBay as well so that those of you who are too busy or too far away from the gold fields may enjoy the thrill of discovering gold in your own living room or back yard. I will judge the cleanup only by what is retained by the rubber mat, and none will be taken from the pay-dirt. Depending on how much gold shows up in the matting, I will classify each cleanup into a few categories and price them accordingly.

I havnt posted too many times on this blog yet, but that is going to change. The season has just begun here, and I am ready to give it hell and bring you all the good information I possibly can!