Thread 2833665

Anyone into prospecting/panning/using similar tools to get shiny things while you're /out/? I recently bought a kit and tried it out yesterday, seems like a fun hobby. With the currency at all time lows it might even be lucrative.
Might head up into the White Mountains this weekend and try my luck.

>>2833665 (OP)
Last time I tried to share my rockhounding and prospecting advice, /out/ had a whole dog pile thread about how it was gay and not /out/, so nope.

>>2833667
/out/ hates /out/ activities, news at 11.

>>2833667
Weird, doesn't seem any less /out/ than fishing or homesteading or watching a survivalist TV show.

>>2833665 (OP)
>tried it out yesterday,
Got anything?
How many hours/minutes were you prospecting/panning?

>>2833665 (OP)
House prices have never been lower.....if paid in gold....

>>2833733
I messed around in the water for around an hour and a half, upstream from a local waterfall (southern NH). Trying to get the hang of it. If there was small gold, I probably tossed it out with my messy panning haha
I did get a few shiny yellowish bits that I think might be gold, but they also may be yellow tinted mica. I also got some small reddish gems that I think are garnets.
The gold heavy streams in this state are up in the mountains, or so I hear.

>>2833665 (OP)
Ive always wanted to try it.
>>2833667
There's been good rockhounding threads before anon, forget the crabs, share with us!

>>2833665 (OP)
I've been crushing rocks and panning them this year. Gold is high enough I'm making more money off prospecting than I do working. So far I've made about an ounce per month

Colorado, I've been panning my whole life. I know where to get the gold.

>>2833862
same anon,
I've also been selling some of my best gold ore on ebay and made a few hundred dollars so far

>>2833862
this is what my ore looks like. It's quartz with gold and silver off an abandoned mine near my house. I've got a few buckets of this rock to crush up, probably about $15k in gold in total.

sorry for pic quality, this was just shot with my phone camera and it's not great at macro shots.

>>2833866
I take a big steel pan and fill it with this ore and then roast it in my fire pit to make it more brittle and easier to crush. The pan keeps all the rocks together and also catches any metal that melts out of the rocks.

>>2833867
Once the rock is roasted I dump it in a steel pot and crush it to powder with an air hammer. Then it gets screened into a gold pan.

>>2833868
After that I pan it down and snifter up the visible gold.

>>2833869
Once I have all the visible gold picked out I hit the concentrates with mercury to pick up any gold and silver I didn't see. Probably half of my cleanup has been in the mercury, so a lot of the gold isn't visible.

>>2833870
finally I clean the product with nitric acid to remove copper, silver, lead, mercury, whatever is mixed in. This gives me a nearly pure gold dust.

later I'll go back and work with the nitric acid to get my mercury and silver back out of it. Copper as well, though that's not particularly valuable.

>>2833871
this is my cleanup for the last couple weeks.

next I'm going to build a rock crusher using an angle grinder to speed up the crushing part. The air hammer works but it's tedious and gives me blisters.

>>2833870
>>2833871
also obviously working with mercury and strong acids is dangerous. I use all the required ppe and take classes every year on how to safely work with the stuff. I wouldn't advise anyone to play with that stuff without some training and preferably someone to show you how to work safely.

>>2833781
if you want to practice your panning technique you can buy a tungsten rod online (the cheapest and smallest will work fine, just make sure its reasonably pure) and make some shavings out of it
mix a measured amount of the shavings with some dirt from outside and youll know how efficient youre being when you pan it

>>2833893
this is good advice. I used small fishing weights but that's how I learned to speed-pan

panning extremely fast without losing any gold is the only way to make it pay most places.

>>2833665 (OP)
I find it soothing sitting by a creek swirling some dirt, finding something is just a bonus.

>>2833900
what? isnt this like 300 dollars in gold? how long does this take to pan if youre in a good location?

>>2833902
That took about 4 hours, but I had to wait 5 years for the water level to drop low enough to get in there. Most of the easy spots have have been hammered for the last 150 years, but every now and then a flood or drought will uncover something good.

>>2833912
whyd you stop? i would have been there until my knees gave out lol
did you go back?

>>2833862
Wow, an ounce per month? That's wild. Do you sell it all or are you stockpiling it?

>>2833893
Thank you anon, I definitely need practice.

>>2833866
thru
>>2833872
(couldn't quote them all system thinks spam)
I really appreciate you walking us through the process, seems tedious but if it pays so well then why would you do anything else?
I've seen some guys on youtube who go into old abandoned mines and find all the stuff the old timers figured wasn't worth scraping together. They seem to have left a surprising amount.
Exploring a mine one day sounds fun, even with how terrifying the underground is. Panning in a wide rocky river mantled by mountains seems more idyllic though.

>>2833948
>Do you sell it all or are you stockpiling it?
I'm selling the stuff the mercury catches and saving the stuff I see. So I'm selling about half of it.
>>2833951
>seems tedious but if it pays so well then why would you do anything else?
It's extremely rare to find ore this rich laying around where I can legally take it. Also I pretty well cleaned out what was left behind. So it's a good side-gig but it will end soon.
>Panning in a wide rocky river mantled by mountains seems more idyllic though.
absolutely. The mountains are overrun with tourists though, and there's not that much gold in the creeks.

even the place I get my gold from-- I used to see maybe on person a day up there. Now it's literally thousands of people per day. And that's normal. There's no empty wilderness in the colorado mountains anymore. Nowhere you can go and not see people.

>>2833951
>They seem to have left a surprising amount.
yes, gold was worth like $16-$18 per ounce when the mine I'm picking over was being worked, so it wasn't incredibly valuable. At that time miners got paid $3 per day, so an ounce of gold was about a week's pay.
The mines got worked over again in the 70's and 80's but back then gold was in the $35-$400 range for most of that time, which again wasn't super valuable compared to today. So a lot got left behind. Obviously those prices have to be adjusted for inflation, but even after counting inflation gold is something like 5 times more valuable right now than it was in the past. So quite a lot of good ore got left behind simply because it wasn't worth mining. We're experiencing another gold rush right now. Mines are re-opening after 50 years sitting idle. The current price makes gold worth going after again for the first time in a lifetime. Trump's tariffs are set to make it go up even more.
I'm seeing a lot more interest in panning and mining in my area. Just because the price is so high.

>>2833665 (OP)

This goofy bastardhas got your back with the panning knowledge.

https://youtu.be/zGnwHO4E13E?si=h2NN--scXxPUVMw9

>>2833935
Yeah, my knees gave out and it got dark. It's a 5 hour trip to get there and when I went back 2 weeks later the water had risen and cut off access. One day I'll have to get a pack raft and some dive gear and try to work it underwater.

>>2833935
This was a good little pocket in a spot nearby that is accessible when the water is up, but most of the good crevices there have been cleaned out.

>>2834073
spectacular stuff

is this west coast US or Oz?

>>2834072
>dive gear
kek surely not, you dont mean panning underwater?
would it be better to get a bucket and fill it up with the shit on the bottom and haul that back to your raft? you wouldnt need dive gear (im assuming its sub 10 meters deep)
and how did you know it was a good spot? what clues do you look for?

>>2834073
>0.99g
i thought it was about double that considering the density

>>2834077
>dive gear
>kek surely not, you dont mean panning underwater?

NTA...he's probably dredging and then panning

>>2834077
https://youtu.be/Z-xnfRsCPDs

>>2834075
West Coast of Tasmania.
https://youtu.be/gcmKBPz2_wA?si=wBQ8UQN2eWMWlL75
That's not me, but because I live in the land of a million rules we aren't allowed to use dredges and have to scratch around and suck up every little bit individually.

>>2834077
It's a spot on a river that was worked for gold 150 years ago and I'm guessing that over the years floods have uncovered a shelf of bedrock that was covered by metres of gravel when the old timers were there, so it wasn't worth their while shifting it all. The perfect bedrock is soft and rotten so gold can sink down into the cracks and gets stuck then it's fairly easy to break up and sieve into your pan.
There's about 2.5g in the pan, the stuff on the scales is from a different day.

>>2834079
>>2834080
it would have been phrased differently if he was using dredges i think

>>2834092
>aren't allowed to use dredges
do they come around and check? whats the punishment and chance of being caught? have you tried doing the risk/reward math?

>>2834094
>worked for gold 150 years ago
makes sense, i was just wondering if there was a way to tell just by the geology or river bends or something
>2.5g in the pan
ah lol so i did guess right. how do you sell it all? do you sell it all?
sorry anon its just that this is really interesting, and ive been wanting to go panning for ages and maybe make it a part time job one day

this shit isnt #out

>>2834099
KYS thread nazi

>>2834095
Yeah, people still use dredges, but if it's possible to get a dredge in there, it's probably already been dredged. Plus the engine noise ruins the ambience which is half the reason I'm/out/ there.
Apparently all the gold in this state belongs to the government and you have to pay for a claim/ environmental bond if you want to sell it, but like most of the nanny state's rules, it's impossible to enforce.
I've tried prospecting areas based on geology, but usually find nothing and quite often come across test pits and trenches where the old timers tried it already and gave up. Most modern gold discoveries are deep, hard rock gold, usually only extractable by chemical processing.

>>2834092
>West Coast of Tasmania.
ah yeah!
I've been watching his videos lately, that place is sick!
those nugs
your ground is better than anything in the US outside alaska
It's how I imagine california back in the day

>>2834102
Unsurprising if you consider that you are at the very tail-end of literally millenia of humans wandering around looking for gold

>>2834106
everything has been worked over and over but they left literal tons of gold that was hard to get.

>>2834110
It's theorized that gold originally obtained its value by being easily found (tens of thousands of years ago) due to its luster and the ease of working it, even cold.

Our ancestors used to pick nuggets the size of your fist off the river bank. You sift dirt for dust.

>>2834111
>You sift dirt for dust.
yes. exactly

the value now is because it's so fucking rare and takes so much work to get.

literally entire cities of people working all day and all night to get a few ounces out of solid rock.

>>2834112
hey bro do you work in Morenci? Can you get me some malachite/azurite/chysocolla?

>>2833665 (OP)
>With the currency at all time lows it might even be lucrative.
Don’t let this thought linger for too long

>>2834147
I don't work there. I only have a couple bits of copper mineral, nothing great.

Went to a river near my father's today, dug into the riverbank and got this after a couple pans. I'd call it "proof of concept". What do you guys use to suck up the really little dust? Those eye dropper things?

>>2834370
good little bit. I'd definitely keep looking around there.

I use one of those plastic eye dropper things to get smol gold. It's cheap and easy

>>2834474
That's what I figured, thanks. I'll definitely be going back. Very nice area.

>>2834549
gorgeous spot. Is that where you found gold? Seems pretty random for a gold deposit. Still water doesn't usually pile up much gold

>>2834676
Yep. I dug into the riverbank. Lots of roots, and it must flood.

>>2834677
very exciting
I pan in the Upper Arkansas Valley in Colorado, a major gold placer zone. A good location will yield 3 or 4 tiny flakes per pan, and will usually be claimed and worked constantly.

from the looks of it you've got a very rich spot there. Do the tooth test to make sure it's gold. Bite a flake, it shouldn't crumble to dust between your teeth. But if that's all gold it's a very interesting spot you have.

>>2834700
And if you get a sudden dose of bloody diarrhea followed by multiple organ failure it was probably arsenopyrite. Maybe just hit it with a hammer if you want to make sure it isn't crumbly.

>>2834700
>>2834718
Ha, beginner's luck I suppose. If I die horribly I'll be sure to let you know.

>>2834718
yep, hammer or pliers work too

you'd have to eat handfuls of arsenopyrite to die. The stuff isn't very dangerous because it's difficult to digest.

>>2834024
Yeah that guy's pretty good, though he has a really really rich area seemingly. I also like Vo-Gus Prospecting and Ask Jeff Williams.

>>2834718
>arsenopyrite
not nearly dense enough to be picked up by an amateur panner

>>2835703
Even if he managed to find some and keep it in the pan, it doesn't look anything like gold.
The exaggerated fear of arsenopyrite seems to be an internet meme passed around by people who've never seen the stuff

>>2833665 (OP)
Wouldn't you get more just harvesting old computer parts?

>>2835813
computer parts cost money, you can get gold dirt for FREE!

but yeah, there's more gold in a computer than you'll find in a day of panning most places. Good luck finding a free computer every day though.
Also harvesting computer gold isn't very fun or /out/doors

>>2833862
>So far I've made about an ounce per month
Damn son.

>>2835959
funny thing is I've had most of this rock sitting around for 30 years now. The price of gold was just never high enough to make it worth the effort to get.

Heads up to Anons to learn how to read a river before panning.

https://youtu.be/cjRjEki3fMM?si=C53TYxOd7Dhn8NQq

more stuff

https://youtu.be/XOiMxsqrB-c?si=BS_Ohp8VTuJmC6jz

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLjyi8ZCd8kjcxinpwEgprxB1ny4RFik0L&si=59Bm1N5nnl4QdF6R

I did a gold-panning thing up in NorCal
After lunch we used a sluice box and were told that it could filter as much gold in a couple hours as one could pan in a day

>>2837937
if by day you mean the full 24 hours then yeah probably kek
the problem is that there are places where panning is allowed but sluicing isnt (or at least its licensed differently)

>>2837937
In north cal you can make about an ounce per week, which is currently about $182k per year.

this is particularly rich ground. But you also about have to kill someone to get the rights to pan there.

>>2836382
why odes the text look AI generated?

>>2838328
its probably just ai upscaled

Gonna try panning this weekend because of this cute damned shit...

>>2836382
Thanks anon! Very helpful for me, a beginner. That said, the guy in the videos is way too...energetic, spazzy.

>>2838328
My guess is it's a scanned document that's been put through adobe's word recognition software.

remember to keep an eye out for where different types of rock meet in your local creeks. a good quartz vein running across the bottom can be an excellent gold trap, heavy material cant pass it until it weathers away.

Ill just wait until you make a big score and blow your brains out and steal it like in RDR2

>>2838542
good night mr. pocket

>>2838545
That was a good movie and that was one of my favorite stories in it.

>>2838550
I liked it, it was a perfect representation of statistical prospecting and old time potholing.

The only part I didn't like was him throwing away huge flakes of gold as he was panning to find the pocket, but I suppose they had to make them huge for the camera. In real life gold flakes that big would've meant claiming the river and its banks and mining the shit out of them also.

I've seen videos of people using the Falcon Gold Tracker MD20($350) But how useful would something like pic(link)rel be for looking for gold?
https://a.co/d/ayW9z5z

>>2838844
Pinpointers don't have discriminators or ground tracking so they're going to be set off by every chunk of magnetite or patch of black sand, and those things are more common than gold

they also only detect gold at about pea-size and bigger, so they're going to miss all the flakes and dust entirely. Might be good for telling you when you're in the black sand so gold might be near. But you can learn that just by looking at the dirt also. Or by panning out a scoop of gravel.
FWIW I have six metal detectors and a couple pinpointers and I don't use them for gold prospecting. Panning is easier, more fun, and more productive where I live.

>>2838470
>Rur
bro please go to /a/ and ask in the ruri no houseki threads for a better webm of this scene, this is painful to watch did you copy a stream?

>>2838552
>I didn't like was him throwing away huge flakes of gold
You'd be surprised how realistic this is for the time.

>>2836382
Dude has tiktok tourette syndrome

>>2839004
there is no way you would just throw it away though. sure, its not exactly what youd be looking for but its still worth your time picking it up. think about it, if you see a penny on the ground wouldnt you bend to pick it up if just finding money is your job? bending down and pocketing it takes a second, thats more than a hundred dollars an hour.
a prospector even back then would think its worth picking even the smallest flakes up

>>2839095
NTA.. You're thinking about it in modern terms with gold at extremely inflated prices(currently $3.5k/oz), those flakes add up when that's what you're looking for. What you're not considering is that you are merely finding the flecks they did toss, because they were looking for nuggets and eventually the source and that was a real prospect because this was truly virgin ground as pertains to gold mining.

>>2839095
Gold prices pre 1849 are around $16/oz which is about $655 in today's dollar. That's about $25/g in today's dollar. Which isn't nothing, but not the $125/g you'd get today. And again, I have to bring up, you have a famine mentality because that's the current state of "wild" gold.

>>2839099
one of those flakes would take me 10 hours of work to acquire now. Granted gold was more common then, but not to the point where five minutes of digging and panning is equal to 10 hours today. That's what, 120 times more gold in his worst pan than I find in my best. The one with 5 colors would be ~600 times more gold than my best place found after a lifetime of panning everywhere in my area.

the old timers didn't get every pocket. I still run into some rich stuff right in the middle of their worked placers, but nothing like that. Flakes that big would've started a gold rush with literally thousands of people running across the country to get some of that. Hell, the Colorado gold rush started off much much worse ground than that. Cherry Creek in Denver is a terrible placer ground.

>>2839100
>$16/oz which is about $655 in today's dollar.
Inflation is brutal

>>2839104
I do get what you're saying, but this exactly my point. It didn't take him 10 hours to get one of those flacks, he got them first shovel full into the pan.. And They were most likely exaggerated to show them obviously on the screen. You keep flakes because that's the majority of what you're going to find these days. He didn't because he wasn't looking for flakes, he was looking for Mr. Pocket. He wasn't looking for grams, he was looking for pounds. And, it was a movie(and a silly one at that), so some suspension of disbelief is required.

>>2839157
Growing up in the 80s, candy bars were 25cents, 50 for king size. I remember during the first Gulf War when they went up to 30 and then 35 cents. Now they're $2. Inflation is indeed brutal. But that's what happens when money printers go brrrr... They don't raise taxes because it's unpopular, so they just print more money, which devalues the money you have, taxing everyone through inflation. But I have good news!! House prices have never boon lower!!! When paid in gold....

You sure do get a lot of garnets doing this.

>>2839301
You will get a LOT of garnets. If you collect a few pounds, you can sell them.