Panning for gold makes a comeback in bad economy
 

http://www.usatoday.com/money/market...-economy_N.htm

NEW LONDON, N.C. � Ashley Michalak and Nate Neitz are dipping pans of dirt into a long wooden trough on a hot summer day. But these aren't ordinary pans, and it's not ordinary dirt. They're gold pans, and the dirt � they hope � is pay dirt. The two cousins are panning for gold at the Cotton Patch Gold Mine in the heart of the nation's oldest gold-mining country. "It's cool. You never know what you're going to find," says Nate, 12.
Ashley, 11, has found two small pieces of gold, about the size of a pencil tip. By the end of the day, the two will bring home 10 small flakes of gold in tiny plastic bottles.

Bob Michalak, their grandfather, brought them to the gold fields just to have fun hunting treasure on a hot summer day. But the nation's shaky economy has sent gold rocketing to $950 an ounce, as investors spurn greenbacks for the yellow metal � which, they figure, will always be worth something. High gold prices, combined with increasing economic uncertainty, means that more families are including gold panning in their vacation plans. And, because a little bit of gold can become a lot of money, gold panning for some people is more than a hobby: It's a source of much-needed income.

Down the road from the Cotton Patch Gold Mine, in Midland, N.C., is the Reed Gold Mine, site of the nation's first fit of gold fever. In 1799, Conrad Reed, 12-year-old son of farmer John Reed, discovered an unusually heavy 17-pound rock, which his father used as a doorstop until selling it for the rock-bottom price of $3.50 a few years later. (It was worth $3,600 then, or about $193,000 at today's gold prices.)

Today, John Reed's gold mine is a state park and, after more than 200 years of mining, it still yields some gold. That brings 300 to 500 people a day to look at the underground galleries and pan for gold. Workers bring the gold-bearing dirt from the nearby creek, and the park charges $2 a pan.

"You get a piece of gold in every six or seven pans," says park interpreter Michael Scott. "Nobody's getting rich."

But Cathryn Struck, 8, struck gold at the park's panning site. "I found one tiny little thing of it, a little fleck," Cathryn says. "That was awesome."

It's not just kids panning for gold in North Carolina gold country. John Burns, 64, comes to the Cotton Patch mine nearly every weekend, when he's not searching for gold elsewhere. A Vietnam veteran and retired plumber, Burns wanted something to do � and the money wasn't such a bad thing, either. "There aren't many hobbies that pay you back," Burns says.

$12 for a chance at minor riches

North Carolina gold tends to be small flakes. The largest found at the Cotton Patch since owner Jeff Pickett took over two years ago was 8 grams � about the size of your pinky nail. At current prices, that would be worth about $240. "Anything larger than that is a heart attack," Burns says.

Pickett charges prospectors by the amount of dirt they sift. The dirt is partly crushed rock � gold is often found in the presence of quartz, which has to be pulverized to extract the gold. The rest is dirt from the lode on Pickett's property.

For $12, you get five 2-gallon buckets of dirt, a pan and a small bottle for keeping your gold. Panning takes patience, dipping the pan into the water to wash away the lighter dirt, tossing aside the bigger stones, and watching for tiny flecks of gold in the fine black sand that's left. It's not easy. "I'm getting a strong right arm," Burns says.

Some prospectors use a Gold Magic wheel, a kind of motorized pan that can process dirt about five times faster than panning. More-eager gold-diggers use a sluice, a long, metal tray with riffles on the bottom to catch the gold. You put it in a creek bed and sift the pay dirt into it, letting the stream wash away the dirt.

The truly ambitious miners prefer a highbanker, a sort of motorized sluice. A highbanker can go through a front-end loader of dirt � $140 at the Cotton Patch � in a day. Prospectors can sell their gold at the camp's general store.

Pickett has far more serious mining equipment, complete with rock-crushing machinery and an industrial-sized sluice that can pull out gold pieces down to tiny dust particles mixed with sand, which he sends to New England to get processed into ingots. Last year, he says, high gas prices kept campers and panners away, and the economy this year hasn't helped, either: He's open for gold panners just on weekends now.

On the other side of the country, in Jamestown, Calif., business is booming. People are coming to Gold Prospecting Adventures to learn how to supplement their income with a bit of gold.

Jamestown, in Tuolumne County, is near the heart of the California mother lode that stretches from El Dorado County down to Mariposa County. (You can still pan for gold at Sutter's Mill, in nearby El Dorado County, where gold was discovered in 1848, sparking the Gold Rush of 1849.)

The Forty-Niners are long gone, but there's plenty of gold left. Old mining techniques were crude, and lots of gold fell into the creeks or simply got overlooked. People come to Gold Prospecting Adventures for day trips and for serious gold-mining advice and equipment. "The type of people coming now are those wanting to get into it; they want to learn how to stake claims," says Bryant Shock, part owner of the company.

Because times are tough and gold prices are high, Bryant is seeing a lot of people in their 20s start prospecting � as well as a lot of people in their 50s. "People can make more money in a few days prospecting than they can working five days a week at McDonald's or Wendy's."

Prospecting equipment sales have tripled since last year, Shock says. "That tells me right there that there are a lot of people looking for gold, and not just here." Indeed, prospectors have staked 54 gold mining claims in Tuolumne County this year, vs. 47 all last year and 32 in '07. A claim lasts one year.

Amateur gold mining isn't without its problems. Sluices have been banned in California because of the amount of debris they can put into local creeks, fouling the streams and killing fish.

And, because mercury and cyanide are useful in removing gold dust from sand, amateurs run the risk of poisoning themselves. Several Internet sites give instructions on using a potato to remove mercury from a gold/mercury amalgam. Others recommend heating the mercury, which can release dangerous fumes. During the California gold rush, some 26 million pounds of mercury were used to extract gold from the ore, and much of it remains in the Sacramento River bed today.

Getting gold ore from the ground remains backbreaking work � perhaps even more so now. "When I first started, in 1980, you could go down to the hardware store and order a case of dynamite," Shock says. No longer. "Since 9/11, everything has changed."

Growing more popular all the time

Yet the difficulties in getting gold haven't stopped the soaring popularity of prospecting. The Gold Prospectors Association of America reports a 20% increase in membership from last year, to about 50,000. "I was in Nome, Alaska, where you used to see five or six people using dredges on the beach," says Brandon Johnson, director of operations for the GPAA. "Now you're seeing 18, 19 of them � people are selling the gold they find and using it to pay the bills."

Back at the Cotton Patch, however, John Burns talks about what interests him in prospecting. "My primary interest was getting outside, and getting away from crowds," he says. "But finding the gold is the real excitement."

Re: Panning for gold makes a comeback in bad economy
 

gold prospecting is a risky business I tell ya, very risky...:rofl:

Re: Panning for gold makes a comeback in bad economy
 

Over the last 6 months, I�ve had more than a dozen reporters from various sources including the European press contact me about the same thing � they were all looking to do a story about some folks digging for gold to survive the current recession. The idea would make for a good human interest story and it has occurred to a number of media folks. The truth is that I don�t know of a single person that fits that description. It may sound good, but I think it�s a myth. Here is a full explanation as to why it just isn�t reality that lots of folks are out there digging gold to survive.

During the great depression of the 1930s, tens of thousands of families headed to the hills in the goldfields of all the various western states to dig for gold to survive. Little communities sprung up and were often given the sarcastic nickname of �Hooverville� after the president who presided over the stock market crash and beginning of the depression. Many had little in the way of experience as far as prospecting. However they had little choice. There were no jobs in the cities � unemployment was at 25%, and there was no social welfare system as we know it now. Bread lines in the cites were horrible and the existing charities just could not keep up with the great number of people who needed help. Many moved to the hills because if they camped on government land, they had no rent to pay, in many places they could hunt for some food (they also hunted without regard to the hunting laws because they needed to survive) and they could make a few bucks mining gold � even if it was only enough money to pay for beans. It was a very dire situation and extreme measures were needed. Most depression era prospectors mined only a few dollars per week in gold, but they were better off then they would be sitting homeless and jobless in the big cities. Those folks who mined for gold worked very, very hard for the few dollars they made. Although my grandparents did not hunt gold and live off the land to survive, I remember the stories they used to tell me about their experiences surviving the great depression � it was a terrible time.

The situation now, however, is very different.
First, although this is the worst recession of my lifetime, and conditions really are bad, it is no where near the extreme condition of the great depression of the 1930s. We have less than 10% unemployment and things seem to be starting to slowly get a tiny bit better. The government has social welfare programs ranging from unemployment insurance to food stamps to welfare to low cost housing, etc., etc., etc. People do not need to live off the land, dig for gold and scratch out a meager living to survive. People do not need to leave the cities or starve. Government aid has made a huge difference and the government is extending unemployment benefits, so many just collect a government check and continue searching for a new job or even get federal money to start training and begin a new career. Existing charities are not overwhelmed in the same way they were in the 1930s. Additionally, US government regulations now forbid folks from camping out on the land on a semi-permanent basis as they did in the 1930s. You cannot legally camp out at any location on federal land for more than 2 weeks at a time. In the 1930s, most government officials looked the other way when it came to the enforcement of hunting, fishing and camping laws because of the dire situations of the families who were suffering. Such is not the case today.

As a result, there just are not loads of folks out there panning and sluicing for gold to survive. It is very hard work, and even with my 30+ years experience and related college degree, I only average about 1/20 th of an ounce per day over the long haul. That equates to a little less than $50 per day at current prices. I�ve had a number of days where I made $500 or more in a day, but I�ve also have plenty of days where I found little or nothing. The $50 is a rough average. An inexperienced operator might expect to make more like $10 to $15 per day on average (knowing what you are doing does make a difference). Given the current situation and help available, who would want to work their fingers to the bone for $15 per day???? If you needed to do that to survive, I'm sure folks would do it � but today no one needs to do that to survive.

The reality is that if there are folks who are really digging for gold to survive this recession, they are very, very few in number. Now there are (and have been all along) a number of retirees who supplement their incomes prospecting, but the ones I know all have other incomes and do this for recreation, exercise and a few �extra� dollars. They have no real �need� to prospect. There are also loads of weekenders like me who spend their vacation time hunting gold instead of fishing or hunting game.

Chris

Re: Panning for gold makes a comeback in bad economy
 

Where did you get this? I haven't seen it mentioned on this forum certainly

Re: Panning for gold makes a comeback in bad economy
 

When government can't get their share of your income, they just.........LOL
Probably will see similar legislation passes in other states.
Amateur gold mining banned in California
August 12, 2009 15:30:00 IST
http://www.commodityonline.com/news/...20331-3-1.html

CALIFORNIA (Commodity Online): The mad gold rush to California will soon end with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger clearing a bill banning suction dredge mining until an environmental review determines how much harm the practice is doing to struggling salmon runs.

California has been a gold hunters� paradise till now with thousands of people thronging the California river for gold nuggets. The amateur gold miners have been crowding the river bed following the rise in gold prices for the past 2 years.

Now the small-scale miners will have to find their gold nuggets the old-fashioned way with shovels and pans.

The suction dredge mining was used by modern-day miners in wetsuits to glean the last flecks of gold from river bottoms.

The Bill is a major victory for the Karuk Tribe, who were overrun by the original Gold Rush of the 1850s and have been trying to rein in a new swarm of hobby miners as part of their campaign to restore salmon runs at the center of their culture.

The California Department of Fish and Game last updated the rules in 1994 but have yet to revise them in compliance with a 2005 lawsuit.

An injunction revised last month ordered the department to stop selling new dredging permits until the environmental review is completed. The legislation brings an immediate halt.

Besides altering the shape of the river and stirring up silt, there is evidence dredging can release toxic mercury locked in the riverbed, which can harm young salmon and lamprey, a jawless eel-like fish that is food for salmon as well as the Karuk.

The state this year issued 3,500 dredge mining permits to people from around the country.

When miners killed Karuk people and destroyed their villages in the 1850s, the survivors faded into the hills, where they eked out a living hunting deer, fishing for salmon and even panning a little gold to buy flour for frybread.

A century and a half later, members of the Karuk Tribe have mixed feelings about the fight. Many harbor bitter memories of stories told by their grandparents of the miners destroying villages and washing down whole hillsides with giant hydraulic nozzles to get at the gold mixed in with the quartz and serpentine that color the rocks blue-green, gray and white.

Re: Panning for gold makes a comeback in bad economy
 

Calipornia, ain't that the state that paid a 50 cent bounty on the right ears of natives back in the 1800s; and paid out near a million dollars?Seems like these natives out there ought to have a better target for their lawsuits than the poor gold dredgers.

Re: Panning for gold makes a comeback in bad economy
 

When I posted that in August, yes unemployment was below 10%. It is higher now. Yes the economy is very slowly starting to get better. Unemployment is a lagging indicator and always has been. The Chicago Purchasing managers index is a leading indicator and its as high as its been in since before the recession started.

Things are bad, no question about it, but it ain't the end of the world just yet.

I was born in the Peoples Socialist Republik of Kalifornia - you can see why so many of us have left. The government there wants everyone to live on dependent their welfare dole.

Re: Panning for gold makes a comeback in bad economy
 

Call Daryll at Reno propsetors supply and chat him up , . Hell tell ya whats the truth in Cal. And Nev. on the mining skinny. He nerly died last year and he aint a coward wanabe rich guy phsyco like the rest in the mob of prospecting show business and is a FFA dealer to boot.

Daryll says mining/ dredging will be going for sure in Cal. this spring-- PLP made it happen.

Call him , and buy his merch. .

Re: Panning for gold makes a comeback in bad economy
 

Re: Panning for gold makes a comeback in bad economy
 

Re: Panning for gold makes a comeback in bad economy
 

I've been in Daryl's store many times over the years. He and Jennifer are both good people.